Light Years from Home
by Akozu Heiwa
Summary: Lance had always been, well, different. He knew he was adopted when he was like, four? It didn't matter, his family was his family, blood or not. But he's always felt that something just wasn't right, wasn't the same. And then he got thrown into space. And then things started becoming familiar.
1. Prologue

Alarms were blaring. Alaea knew she needed to get out of here, to get Blue somewhere safe, but right now she was more focused on finding her son, her small, wonderful, missing son. Coran, she knew, was probably already safe if Alfor had any say in it. Her brother had always loved her husband as if they were blood, and Alaea was never more grateful. But Aluran was missing.

"Alaea!" came her brother's familiar cry. "Alaea!"

"Alfor," she gasped. "I can't- I can't find Aluran."

He seemed to hesitate a moment. "You need to get to Blue, go somewhere, anywhere safe."

"Aluran," she insisted.

"He's safe, he's with Coran," said Alfor.

She nearly deflated with relief. "You're taking Red, right?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "The others have already left. Black is locked up- she won't be happy, but she's safe."

"Stay safe, brother," she whispered. "I cannot bear to lose you."

"You be safe as well, sister," he said. "If all goes well, we will meet again soon."

"We will," she said.

Content that her son was safe, she raced to Blue's hangar and climbed in. "Alright, darling, let's get somewhere safe."

Then off they went. Alaea loved the feeling of flying. She saw Red fly out of her hangar as well and nodded. Then she breathed and focused. "Let's open a wormhole, love. Anywhere, anywhere."

It took a lot of energy, but they managed it. She saw the flash of an ion cannon, but she was fairly sure as they ricocheted forward that it had missed them. They sped through and ended up in an unrecognisable patch of stars. Alaea breathed a sigh of relief. "Let's find a place to camp, then. Find the nearest habitable planet, please, love."

"What's 'abiteaba mean?" chirped a small voice.

Alaea jumped. "'Luran?"

"Yeah, mama, what's happenin'?" he asked, tilting his head.

"Alfor say you were with your father," she said faintly.

"I was wid Bwue," he said.

She swallowed. "Damn him. He lied to me."

Suddenly, Blue's alarms started blaring too. Aluran yelped and fell off of where he was clinging to the back of her seat.

"Blue, love, what's wrong?" Alaea asked worriedly. "Blue? Blue, darling?"

Blue was panicking, which didn't bode well with Alaea. Had something hit her? Had-

Oh.

Oh no.

Before they left. The ion cannon. She'd been wrong, and- damn. They'd been hit and now something was wrong.

"Okay, 'Luran, it's okay," she murmured, gathering up her small son and walking carefully towards where she knew the emergency stasis pods were. "You're going to take a nap for me, okay? Okay?"

"But m'not sleepy," he said in confusion.

"But I need you to take a nap," she said. "Please, sweetheart. Just for a little while."

"Mama," he whined.

She hushed him and gently put him in the pod. He yawned despite himself as she closed the pod off. The sedatives would kick in. He would be perfectly safe unless some complete and utter disaster happened. If Blue was intact, he would be fine.

Something crashed into Blue, and Alaea stumbled and fell into a panel.

"Quiznak!" she cursed loudly. "Blue, what's happening? Talk to me, love!"

Something else hit them. Alaea gasped, and again flew across the cockpit. She was beginning to regret leaving her suit at the castle- Alfor's terrible suggestion, as usual. This flight suit was a good one, but not nearly as protective as her paladin suit.

"Blue, give me something," she practically begged.

Blue had no idea, just a whole lot of panic, which was not helping Alaea's state of mind.

They seemed to be in some sort of asteroid belt, but they were nearly out of it. Despite this, Alaea had lost all control of her lion. They're spiralling out of control towards a little blue and green planet in a solar system she doesn't recognise.

Aluran was safe.

And she was going to die, wasn't she?

"Oh, Aluran, I'm sorry," she whispered. "Coran, my love, oh, I'm sorry."

They crashed into the surface and Alaea's world went black.

 **A/N: SO! I've been in the fandom for a while but haven't written any content (eh, well, postable content, because I don't count my cruddy OC/Self-Insert fic as postable because it's mostly for fun and kind of lame). I, of course, fell in love with the idea of Altean Lance, and so here is my version of it.**

 **To sum things up:**

 **Lance's Altean name was Aluran (if someone else has used this name, I'm sorry... I sat and thought for ages and this was the only thing that felt right to me). His father is Coran and his mother is Alaea. Alaea is Alfor's sister, which means Lance and Allura are cousins. A lot of people make them siblings, and I love that a lot, but I really liked the dynamics between Lance and Coran. Everyone else is literally the same.**

 **Updates may be kinda sporadic, but I really wanted to write this. Super short prologue, not my best work but... XDD an effort! Love you guys!**


	2. The Rise of Voltron: Part One

Well, that had been a disaster.

Lance dropped his uniform carelessly onto the dorm floor. Hunk was carefully positioning his favourite headband, humming some happy tune Lance didn't recognise.

It was his, what, fifth simulator and he still hadn't crashed one?

A so-called cadet, indeed.

Lance blamed the simulator. It was so off. Not at all like real space. He'd thrive in real space. He figured, anyway.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about the simulation," Hunk said, as if reading Lance's thoughts.

"Huh, me?" Lance spluttered. "Nah! No way!"

"It was partially me and Pidge, anyway," said Hunk. "If Pidge hadn't been yelling at you, and I hadn't puked in the-"

"Iverson has it rigged," decided Lance dismissively, shooting Hunk a comforting smile. "Hey! I know what will cheer all three of us up!"

"Oh no," said Hunk.

Lance pulled on his favourite jacket (a gift from his older brother Javier who'd gone off to college in some fancy place like Harvard a couple of years ago) and allowed a wide grin to form.

"Come on, Hunk, live a little!" he insisted.

"Yes, um, last time I lived a little we almost got expelled," said Hunk.

"Pfft, irrelevant," Lance scoffed. "I know this great pizza joint, just on the outside of town- we can be back before midnight!"

As if on cue, the intercom crackled to life. "Light's out in five! Everyone back to their dorms."

"Come on, Hunk," said Lance, already half out the door. "You know you like pizza."

"I know I like pizza," he moaned in defeat.

Lance glanced around the corner and slipped out cautiously. Hunk followed him hesitantly.

"We should not be doing this," Hunk said nervously.

"Relax," said Lance. "Look, Iverson said we needed to bond, didn't he? This is bonding! A night on the town, pizza, girls. Let's get Pidge."

"I'm just, okay, well, for the record, just right here," said Hunk, "this is a bad idea."

"You know, for someone in a space exploration program, you really don't have a sense of adventure," said Lance.

Hunk scoffed. "All of your little adventures end with me in the principal's office!"

"Hide," Lance hissed, pulling his friend around a corner. "There!"

"Oh, man," groaned Hunk as they climbed into (luckily empty) trashcans. Lance listened carefully as the guards made their rounds. When he was content they were gone, he smoothly pushed the lid over his head and hopped out.

Hunk's can fell over. Lance gave Hunk an annoyed look and he smiled sheepishly.

"I'm fine," he said.

Lance sighed. "Alright, then, come on."

Pidge's dorm was right around this corner- he used to room with someone, but the kid had flunked out and Pidge had hated him, so it wasn't a big deal. He seemed pleased to room alone.

Probably so he could sneak out like he was doing now.

"Where is he going?" Lance hissed, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, guess Pidge is out, shame, let's go back to the dorm," said Hunk, turning around. Lance grabbed his friend's collar and pulled him back.

"Let's follow him," said Lance.

Hunk groaned.

They followed Pidge all the way to the roof of the school. The boy had set up what looked to Lance to be some sort of radio, complete with a headset. He leaned behind him and lifted the headphones.

"You come out here to rock out?" he asked slyly.

"Waah!" exclaimed Pidge, jumping into defensive potion. Lance laughed. "Oh, Lance. Hunk. I'm, uh, just looking at the stars."

"With this stuff?" Lance said. "Man, this doesn't look like Garrison tech. Where'd you get it?"

"I built it," said Pidge proudly.

"Woah, you built all of this?" said Hunk. He reached out to start poking at it, but Pidge hit him away.

"Stop it!" he exclaimed. "Anyway, with this thing, I can scan all the way to the edge of the solar system."

"Really?" said Lance. "All the way to… Kerberos?"

Pidge blushed and looked away.

"What's up with you and Kerberos?" Lance asked. "Every time someone brings it up, you go ballistic!"

Pidge hit Hunk's hand away again. "Second warning, Hunk!"

Hunk chuckled sheepishly.

"Look, Pidge," said Lance seriously. "If we're going to bond as a team, we can't have any secrets."

"Fine," huffed Pidge. "The world as you know it is about to change. The Kerberos mission wasn't lost because of craft malfunction or pilot error. It- stop touching my stuff!"

Hunk pulled away, grumbling.

"Anyway, I've been scanning the system," Pidge said. "And I've been picking up alien radio chatter."

"Woah, woah," said Hunk. "Aliens."

"Alright, so you've lost it," said Lance. "Got it."

"I'm serious! They keep repeating this one word. Voltron," said Pidge. Lance sat up straighter.

"Voltron?" he repeated.

Pidge nodded. "And tonight it's going crazier than I've ever heard it."

That was not a good sign, just based on Lance's sci-fi movie experience.

"How crazy?" he asked hesitantly.

As if to answer, the loudspeaker buzzed to life. "Attention, students. This is not a drill. We are on lockdown! Security situation Zulu Niner. Repeat: all students are to remain in barracks until further notice."

"Zulu Niner?" Lance mumbled, racking his brain. "Hey, isn't that for-"

"Is that a meteor?" said Hunk in alarm. "Please tell me that's a meteor!"

"It's a ship!" said Pidge.

"I can't believe I'm seeing this," breathed Lance. "That is not one of ours!"

"No," said Pidge. "It's one of theirs."

"W-wait, there are really aliens out there?" said Hunk in alarm. "Like, beep-boop take me to your leader?"

"Come on, Hunk," Lance said. "That's stereotypical."

"We've got to see that ship!" decided Pidge.

Lance hopped up after him. "C'mon, Hunk!"

"Oh," moaned Hunk, "this is the worst team-building exercise ever!"

The three of them snuck as carefully as they could out of the Garrison. It wasn't as difficult as Lance had expected, and soon they were running across the desert.

"Get down!" hissed Pidge, ducking behind a rock. Hunk and Lance followed his lead.

"Woah," said Lance. "What the heck is that thing?"

"Alien ship," squeaked Hunk.

Something about the ship gave Lance a bad feeling, and it may have been the fact that it was an alien ship and had an all-around evil feeling around it.

"Okay, so, alien ship," said Lance. "How are we going to get past all those guards?"

"Aw, man, yeah," said Hunk. "Welp, guess there's nothing to do but head back to the barracks. Ah, well-"

"Wait!" said Pidge. "There's a camera in there. I just grabbed its feed. Look!"

Lance leaned over his shoulder to peer at his screen. His eyes narrowed. A man, a human, was strapped down to a table. His arm was metal, a prosthetic, and he had a scar across his nose and a tuft of white hair.

People were talking to the man, but Lance was busy inspecting him to listen.

"That's Takeshi Shirogane!" Lance realised. "The pilot of the Kerberos mission! That man is my hero!"

"Guess he isn't dead in space after all," said Hunk.

"Where's the rest of his crew?" asked Pidge anxiously.

"Do you know how long you've been gone?" Iverson asked Shiro.

"I don't know. Months, years? Look, there's no time," insisted Shiro. "Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They're probably on their way. They'll destroy us. We have to find Voltron!"

"Voltron!" repeated Pidge.

"Sir," said one of the men, "look. His arm- it's been replaced with some sort of cyborg prosthetic."

"Put him under until we know what it can do," order Iverson.

"What?" Lance whispered.

"No. No, no, no," said Shiro, struggling to escape. "Don't put me under! We don't have time- let me go!"

He was too late and passed out moments later. Lance scowled. So Iverson wasn't taking him seriously- this was kind of a big deal. If aliens were coming for a weapon… well, someone had to get it before they did.

"They didn't even ask about D- the rest of the crew!" said Pidge.

"What are they doing?" Lance hissed. "Shiro's a legend- they won't even listen to him?"

"We have to get him out," said Pidge.

"And find this Voltron," added Lance.

"Uh, guys, I hate to be the voice of reason here, as always," said Hunk, "but we were watching it here because we can't get in there."

"That was before we were properly motivated," said Lance. "We have to think. Maybe we could… tunnel in?"

"Maybe we could get some hazmat suits and sneak in," said Pidge. "Pass ourselves up as med techs."

"Ooor," said Hunk, "we could dress up like cooks, head back to the dorms, and sneak into the kitchen for a late night snack?"

"Hunk, this is serious," Lance said. "What we need is a distraction."

As if on cue, there was an explosion in the distance.

Well, that was convenient.

"It's the evil aliens!" yelped Hunk. "They're here- oh, they got here so quick!"

"No, those are a distraction," realised Pidge. "For that guy! The Garrison is headed to the blast, and he's sneaking in from the other side!"

Lance peered where she was pointing and scowled.

"No way!" he said. "He is not going to beat us in there. Always trying to one up me, the jerk!"

"Wha- who is it?" said Hunk.

"Keith, that's who!" said Lance. "Oh, man, I'd recognise that mullet anywhere!"

He hopped up and started running down the hillside. Hunk and Pidge stayed close behind him.

"Who's Keith?" asked Pidge.

"He's my rival," Lance said. "Well, sort of. I mean, it's really his fault we're rivals and all. Woah!"

He skidded to a stop outside the alien ship and hesitated.

 _Alarms blaring- what is going on?- why were they-_

"Lance? What's the matter?" asked Pidge.

"Um, aliens?" suggested Hunk. "Evil aliens? Coming for us all?"

"No, no," said Lance, shaking off his strange thoughts. "I just- let's go rescue Shiro!"

By the time they reached Shiro, Keith was already helping him up.

"Hey- nope, no," said Lance. "No, you don't. I'm saving Shiro!"

He walked over and helped Keith support Shiro. Keith gave him a blank look. "Uh, who are you?"

"Who- who am I?" squeaked Lance, insulted. "Lance! It's Lance! We were in the same class at the Garrison? Remember?"

"Oh, uh, you're an… engineer?" he guessed.

"Wha- no!" said Lance. "I'm a pilot! We were- we were rivals. You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck!"

"Oh, yeah," said Keith. Lance nodded smugly. "You're a cargo pilot."

Lance deflated. "Not anymore. I'm fighter class now, thanks to your little stunt."

"Oh," said Keith. "Well, congratulations."

We helped Shiro, barely conscious, out of the ship and to Keith's hover-bike. Hunk and Pidge also began climbing on.

"Um, guys?" said Hunk. "They're coming back and they do not look happy. We have to go. Mind giving us a lift?"

Keith jumped on as well, and Lance followed, glancing worriedly at the approaching Garrison officials.

"Will this thing be able to hold all of us?" said Pidge in alarm.

"No," Keith replied bluntly.

"It's gonna have to," Lance said. "Go!"

Keith took off. The Garrison officials followed them. Lance winced.

"Can't we go faster?" he asked.

"Maybe if we got rid of some nonessential weight," Keith bit back.

"Huh, maybe," said Lance, glancing around. He paused and scowled at Keith. "Ha ha, very funny."

"Big guy, lean left!" said Keith.

"Huh, me?" said Hunk, before leaning to the left. The hover-bike turned, leaving the Garrison officials to crash behind us. "Oh, man, Mr. Harris just totally wiped out Professor Montgomery- no, wait, he's fine."

"Lean right!" said Keith.

"Um, hate to break it to you," said Hunk, "but I think there's a cliff up ahead."

"Oh, no," said Lance.

"Oh, yes," said Keith.

With that, Keith took them over the cliff. Lance decided that the kid had no right to take all of them to their deaths without their permission.

But they didn't end up dying, and instead lost the Garrison officials. Lance glanced back, then grinned.

"Okay, that was more awesome than I thought it'd be," he admitted.

"I think I'm going to puke," said Hunk.

Pidge leaned away from him in disgust.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

Keith didn't look back. "Home."

 **A/N: Hey! So I promised myself to get a chapter up before Spring Break was over so here it is! It's not much Altean Lance stuff yet, and I relied heavily on canon material. I tried to add some stuff of my own? Still it isn't great. :P**

 **I love all of you guys so much and I'm sorry I made you wait so long! 3**


	3. The Rise of Voltron: Part Two

Home ended up being a little shack in the middle of absolutely nowhere. On the upside, Lance was fairly certain that they wouldn't be found by the authorities there. On the downside, Lance was also fairly certain that Keith was the only human life to have ever graced this place in, well, ever.

"It's not much," said Keith.

No kidding.

Lance quickly decided against saying that.

"You some sort of conspiracy theorist?" he asked instead, gesturing to the bulletin board full of photographs. He peered at it, brow furrowing. "Some sort of robotic lion."

Keith looked vaguely surprised, but shook his head. "It isn't conspiracy if it's the truth. And anyway, I don't know about robot. Those drawings- I don't know where they came from."

Lance nodded. "I guess it's pretty cool."

The other boy looked a lot more delighted than he had any right to, especially after not remembering Lance at all.

Pidge stood on his tiptoes to stare at Keith. "Aliens."

"I- I'm sorry?" he said.

"You believe in aliens?" the smaller boy repeated.

"Um, yes?" he said.

"After last night, who wouldn't?" said Lance. "We rescued Takashi Shirogane from a freaking alien escape pod or something."

Keith glanced at Shiro, still asleep- or unconscious- on the measly couch in the shack. His face fell into a worried expression. Lance was pretty sure the scientists had used some sort of tranquiliser on the guy, and he'd be fine, but Keith still seemed beyond worried.

"Is he like your brother?" Lance asked.

Keith paused and shook his head. "No. But- but we're close."

"Is he like your boyfriend?" Lance asked.

Keith flushed bright red. "No! He's- he's a friend. I've known him for a while."

He didn't explain further, and Lance mentally shrugged because the guy had never seemed much of a talker anyway.

"Did you know the rest of the crew?" asked Pidge.

Keith paused and shook his head. "Not really. Shiro talked about them."

Pidge nodded in what seemed to be disappointment.

"So, I hate to be the voice of reason- and the bringer of bad news- but we're in super big trouble," said Hunk. "Like, seriously, we're going to get kicked out of the Garrison."

Lance faltered at that. Sure, rescuing Shiro was an absolute must. He wouldn't have left the guy to be experimented on or whatever they would do. But outer space had always been his dream. His heart belonged to the stars and now-

The Garrison was his chance to get here, but with this stunt, Hunk was right. They'd be kicked out of the Garrison.

Pidge winced. "Damn."

Lance shot him a scandalised look. "Language!"

The smaller boy made a face at him that suggested that he really didn't care what Lance thought of his mouth. Lance just shook his head disapprovingly.

Keith was giving him an odd stare, but Lance decided to make himself comfortable and plop down on the floor- the little hut had no other furniture, really. The floor was comfy enough.

"So, one of the smart ones, how long does it take for a Garrison tranquiliser to wear off?" Lance asked finally.

"He'll wake within the day," said Pidge nonchalantly. "I'm starved! Is it breakfast already? Kevin, whatcha got to eat?"

"It's Keith," he said flatly.

"Yeah, yeah," said Pidge. "Again, you got any food?"

Keith stared at him as if he were an alien (and Lance wouldn't quite put it past Pidge to be an alien, there was _something_ off about him).

"Food," said Pidge slowly. "It's necessary to _life_. Do you have it?"

"Yes?" said Keith.

Pidge sighed and grumbled something about finding it himself. Keith just looked rather befuddled.

* * *

It wasn't but an hour before Shiro woke up, after they'd finally found something to eat for breakfast (seriously, if anyone needed Hunk this guy did, because stale cereal and ramen was not something to live off of). Shiro had seemed alarmed upon waking, but Keith had offered him something to change into and left him alone for a moment. After changing, the man had stepped outside of the hut.

The clothes fit him well enough that they had to belong to him. Shiro was, you know, brawny and tough and Keith was, well, scrawny and- scrawny.

Keith went out to bring Shiro back in, or maybe just to talk. Lance watched them out the window a moment, revised his opinion and decided that the two were closer to brothers than boyfriends.

They came back in and Keith made a beeline for the robot lion conspiracy board. Shiro observed it with raised eyebrows.

"What have you been working on?" he asked.

Keith shrugged. "Well, I can't really- I got booted from the Garrison."

Shiro frowned and gave him a kind of disappointed look, like the ones his sister Maria gave him all the time when he got into something he shouldn't have.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Keith muttered sheepishly, "but I was- lost- but I found myself drawn here, like some _energy_ was telling me to come and search."

Lance knew that feeling. It was the same thing he felt about the area, and about space, and he, like Keith, had just screwed up and probably lost his chances to stay here or go to space.

"To search?" said Shiro. "For what?"

"I, uh, wasn't sure," Keith admitted. "But I found this area."

He gestured to one of the photographs.

"It's an outcropping of boulders and caves and it's got all of these ancient markings," said Keith. "They each tell a story about a blue lion- well, Lance thinks it's a robot lion- but they all have clues about some sort of arrival. And- well- you showed up."

Lance stared at the photographs, wishing he knew what was so familiar about the lion.

"I should thank you all for getting me out," said Shiro. Lance realised the man was addressing him and Hunk and Pidge. "Lance, right?"

He held out a hand. Lance stared for a moment without understanding, then jolted back into reality and shook the prosthetic.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm Lance, yeah."

Shiro smiled at him, then turned to Pidge. He faltered and his smile dropped in shock.

"Sorry," he said. "You remind me of- a friend."

Pidge's brow furrowed but he didn't say anything about it. "The nervous guy is Hunk. I'm Pidge. Where is the rest of your crew?"

Blunt as usual.

Shiro's face fell. "I- I don't know. I remember- on Kerberos- and we were captured- but then it's all fragmented. I don't know."

Pidge's face fell as well, utter disappointment evident in his features. "Oh."

"Okay, so, sorry to interrupt," said Hunk awkwardly. "But what about the aliens? Where are they and are they coming? Like, for us? At this moment, now?"

Shiro sighed. "I don't know. The most I can remember is the word 'Voltron'. Some sort of weapon, I think, and they're looking for it. Whatever it is, we need to find it first."

"No kidding," said Lance fervently. "No way can they get Voltron, that'd be disaster!"

Everyone turned to stare at him.

"You know about Voltron?" said Shiro.

"Uh," said Lance uncertainly, surprised by his own reaction. "I know that it's a weapon. Cause you told me. And that Pidge heard a lot of, what's-it-called, alien radio chatter."

"And the aliens are bad," Hunk added. He shook his head. "Well, anyway, so last night I was going through Pidge's stuff- I found this picture, it's his girlfriend, aren't they cute-"

"Hey!" Pidge squeaked, yanking the picture from his hands. Lance raised an eyebrow. Pidge had a girlfriend? His girlfriend was shorter?

Must have been a really, really short girl then.

"What were you doing in my stuff?" Pidge nearly snarled.

"Um, well, I wanted a chocolate bar," said Hunk. "But I started reading your diary instead."

"What?" Pidge squawked

"So I noticed these repeating number series? Yeah, the aliens are looking for them and it looks a whole lot like a Fraunhofer line," said Hunk matter-of-factly.

"A frown-what-now?" said Keith, voicing Lance's thoughts for him.

"A Fraunhofer line," Hunk reiterated. "It's like a number describing the emission spectrum of an element. Thing is, this element doesn't exist on Earth. But maybe it's Voltron! So I bet I could build a machine to look for it, like a- a Voltron Geiger counter."

Lance beamed. "Hunk, that's absolutely genius!"

Hunk rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, it's actually really fascinating. See, he wavelength looks like this."

He held up a sketch. Keith's eyes widened and he grabbed it, and held it up to the image of the cliffs.

"I think we know where to start looking," said Shiro.

* * *

Keith was the only one that knew the way to the cliffs, so they ended up following him. As soon as they reached the cliffs, Hunk whipped out his homemade Voltron Geiger counter and started searching for a reading. They followed him as he studied the screen, before his face lit up.

"This way, I've got a reading!" he said as the device began beeping.

The Geiger counted led them to the cave full of drawings that Keith had found. Lance stared around in amazement. The drawings were all over the cave, accentuated with words in a language he sort of recognised but didn't understand.

"Wow," whispered Pidge.

"What are these?" said Shiro.

"These- these are the lion carvings I told you about," Keith said. "They're everywhere."

"They look ancient," Lance commented. His brow furrowed and he put a hand on one of the carvings. "It's like someone crashed here or-"

The carvings lit up. Lance stumbled back in shock as the cave took on a light blue glow.

"They've never done this before," said Keith, staring at lance in unabashed shock.

"I didn't do anything," Lance protested.

Before it could turn into an argument, the ground beneath them gave way. The fall was not a long one, but the landing was still jarring. Lance was the first to sit up.

Sitting majestically before him was the same blue, robot lion the carving spoke of. A shimmering force-field surrounded it- her- it felt like a her.

Lance stood and walked over to it in shock. The other followed him a moment later.

"Is this it?" said Pidge. "Is this- is this Voltron?"

"It must be," Shiro said.

Lance shook his head. "I- I don't think so. At least- I dunno, but I don't think this is Voltron. Not all of it."

"All of it?" said Hunk.

"A gut feeling," said Lance after a moment.

"This must be the cause of all the weird energy," said Keith. He put a hand on the force-field. "How do we get through?"

"Maybe," said Lance, "you just gotta knock."

He rapped his knuckles on the force-field, not expecting it to work. The force-field promptly vanished, and Lance almost fell forward in shock.

"Woah," said Pidge.

The lion was definitely staring at them. After a moment, visions appeared in Lance's head. The blue lion joined with four others to form- some sort of giant robot. Lance was right, it seemed. The Blue Lion was only part of Voltron.

Lance glanced around at his friends as the vision faded. Hoping he wasn't crazy, he asked, "Did everyone else just see that?"

Keith and Shiro nodded mutely.

Hunk made large hand gestures, something kind of like explosions. "Voltron is a robot- a huge, awesome robot!"

"And this is only part of it," said Pidge. "Like Lance said."

"This has to be what they're looking for," said Shiro.

The lion stood suddenly and lowered its head, mouth open. The five stared for a long moment, before Lance took a step forward.

"Lance," Hunk hissed warningly.

Hunk could worry all he wanted. Lance had made up his mind. The lion was _familiar_ and, well, he was nothing if not incredibly curiously.

Mind made up, completely unsure of what lay ahead, Lance stepped inside of the Blue Lion.

 **A/N: You guys! I am so so super sorry this took so long! IB took my by storm in April and May. I'm a failure and I am sorry. But here's the latest update! I really hope you'll forgive me for the wait, and I hope the chapter is worth it.**

 **Love you guys! 3**


	4. The Rise of Voltron: Part Three

The inside of the lion was exactly what Lance was expecting. It was familiar and homey and he found his way to the pilot seat easily. It was kind of like being back at his house where he could just flop into the nearest chair-

Which is of course what he did.

The others joined him moments later.

"Woah," said both Pidge and Keith in unison.

"Alright," said Lance, messing with the controls. They were nothing like the Garrison simulators or the images they saw in books. These controls were more streamlined and futuristic, like they'd come right out of a super cool sci-fi film. "Very nice. _Very_ nice."

Hunk, his ever nervous self, looked ready to start pacing if there had been room enough in the lion to do so. "Okay, so, just so everyone gets it- we're in some sort of- futuristic alien lion head- ship- right now. Like, now."

Lance was about to make a sarcastic comment to put his old friend off edge, but he was stopped at the sound of a warm, almost familiar purr- kind of like his cat Nacho's purr but louder and a bit more machine-y. It had the same comfort that was attached to Nacho's though, so he wasn't too alarmed.

Well, actually, he had thought based on that one documentary he watched that lions couldn't purr.

 _Maybe space lions can_ , offered his brain.

"Uh, did you guys hear that?" he asked, glancing around in shock.

Keith gave him a dubious look. "Hear what?"

The other three looked just as clueless, which was kind of annoying.

"I think it's trying to talk to me," said Lance. "I, um- hello, great Blue Lion!"

In a different situation, he was sure Hunk would have face-palmed. In fact, upon witnessing the awkwardness of what he'd said from anyone else, Lance, too, would have face-palmed.

The lion didn't take any offence, though. Or, he hoped the following roar wasn't because it was offended.

Pidge yelped and Hunk screamed as, suddenly, the lion took off. Lance scrambled to get control of the machine, but the Blue Lion had a mind of its own. They shot out of the cave and soared over the desert. After the terror of the sudden take-off wore down, Lance couldn't help but let out a whoop of joy.

"You are the worst pilot ever!" Keith yelled.

Lance laughed at him. The Blue Lion simply radiated joy as they shot across the desert and into the sky. The sand and rocks sped by out the windows, and the Blue Lion did a couple of ecstatic flips.

"This is so awesome!" Lance exclaimed happily. "Woo-hooo!"

"Make it stop, make it _stop_!" Hunk wailed.

"I can't make it do anything, buddy," Lance offered somewhat apologetically. "It's like it's on autopilot or something."

"Where are you taking us!?" Keith demanded.

"Dude, I told you, it's on _autopilot_ ," Lance said in exasperation. "But it- sorry, sorry _she_ , it's a she- says there's an alien ship approaching Earth! We gotta go stop it!"

"Um, did _she_ say that?" said Pidge dubiously.

"Well, she isn't saying words," admitted Lance. "More like feeding ideas into my head. Kind of. But I get the gist!"

"Well, um, if this is the weapon they want," said Hunk, "what if we, I dunno, _gave it to them_? As a peace offering? So they'll leave us alone- sorry, lion, it's nothing personal-"

"No!" Shiro snapped, surprising Lance with his ferocity. "You don't understand. These monsters- they spread like the plague. They'll taking over the whole universe. Earth will just be next. They won't stop until everything is either theirs or dead. And if they get this-"

"Oh," squeaked Hunk. "Never mind. Bad idea."

They breached the atmosphere. Though nothing had changed inside the cockpit, Lance sucked in a deep breath and released it. All those years dreaming of going to space, and finally, here he was.

The giant alien warship in front of them was kind of a downer, though.

Blue (he was so totally calling her Blue) let out a fearsome roar. Hunk sank behind the pilot seat as if hiding.

"There's the alien ship," he managed.

"They found me," breathed Shiro in horror.

"We've got to get it out of here, lead it away from Earth!" Pidge said.

"Good plan, hang on!" said Lance.

With Blue's help, they rocketed away from the Earth.

"Okay," said Lance. "I think I know what to do."

"Well, be careful," warned Pidge. "It's not a simulator."

"Good thing too," said Lance brightly, "I always crash the simulators!"

That didn't appear to set Keith or Shiro at ease, but Lance was fairly sure he had this. It was way better than the simulators- he'd been right in thinking a real ship would be nothing like them.

"They're gaining on us!" Pidge warned.

"Why aren't they shooting us?" Lance asked. "They're just following."

"That's not a good thing!" Hunk yelped.

"Where- where are we?" said Keith.

"Look," said Shiro. "Kerberos. We're at the edge of the solar system."

"But it takes months to get here, not five seconds," said Pidge.

"Well, we need to get farther," said Lance, trying to urge Blue to get them anywhere but here. Somewhere safe-

A glowing wormhole appeared before them. Lance stared at it, mesmerised.

"What is that?" asked Hunk in alarm.

"So, maybe I'm crazy," said Lance. "But I think we should go through."

"Where does it go?" asked Pidge.

"Somewhere safe," Lance said with such absolutely certainty he shocked even himself. "But- Shiro, you're the senior officer. What do you think?"

Shiro looked mildly alarmed.

"I say we trust the lion, and your instincts," he said. "But we're a team. We need to decide together."

"I say we go for it," said Keith.

"Haven't got a better plan," concurred Pidge.

Hunk let out a low moan. "Alright."

"Suppose we're skipping tomorrow," Lance muttered wryly.

Then they shot through the wormhole.

* * *

Lance fell back in relief as the wormhole disappeared. He didn't know where they were, but the warship wasn't with them.

They were safe.

Then Hunk ruined it by vomiting. Blue made a noise of annoyance.

"So sorry," he managed.

"I'm surprised it took this long," muttered Pidge.

"I don't recognise these stars or constellations," said Shiro. "We're nowhere near Earth."

"Blue wants to go to this planet," Lance says. "I think- it may be going home."

"Um, okay" said Hunk. "Is anyone else doubting the intelligence of flying through a mysterious space portal- wormhole- thing? Why listen to a robot lion?"

"It served its purpose!" Lance defended. "We're safe from the alien warship."

"We're _in_ an alien warship," Keith pointed out.

"What, scared?" Lance challenged.

"Uh, with you piloting?" he retorted.

"Knock it off," said Shiro, cuffing Keith over the head. "We need to work together, okay? No one's exactly pleased to be here, but at least we're relatively safe."

"What do we do?" said Pidge.

"We find out where we're headed," said Shiro. "Lance? You seem to have some clue what's going on."

Lance shifted awkwardly. "She's not really talking anymore and- well I don't know where we are- oh. No, we're headed to that castle."

"A castle?" said Pidge, leaning over to see.

"Woah," said Keith and Hunk.

Blue landed in front of the castle and let them out. Lance took a step forward to stare at it. It vaguely gave off the same feel his house gave off- if his house was suddenly devoid of all of all his beloved family members, that was.

It felt wrong that it was so empty.

"Keep your guard up," warned Shiro. "My crew was captured by aliens once, and it's not going to happen again."

Lance took another step forward, and suddenly, Blue roared and the doors opened.

"We going in?" he asked hesitantly.

"I guess so," said Shiro.

They walked in carefully. It still felt empty and wrong.

"From the size of the lion, I would have expected bigger steps," Pidge said.

Suddenly, a blue glow lit up the area where they were standing.

"Please hold for identity scan," said a computerised voice.

They froze, and a few moments later, the hallway lit up.

"I guess we go that way," said Pidge.

The blue glow around them offered some comfort. The place felt a bit less cold and empty and dead, but it was still eerily still and silent. Lance wasn't sure why, but he was certain this place wasn't supposed to be so empty.

"Hello?" called Hunk hopefully. Only his voice echoed back to him.

"Okay," said Lance. "This is seriously freaky. It's like- like you know those things on the internet? '13 Creepy Abandoned Places That Will Haunt Your Dreams'? Those articles?"

"I don't read those, they give me nightmares," said Hunk matter-of-factly.

"I don't like this," said Shiro. "Stay on guard. We may be dealing with an ambush- and even if we aren't, something happened to make the inhabitants leave."

"Or something killed them," said Lance grimly. For a brief moment, red flashed across his vision and alarms and screams filtered into his hearing, but he blinked and it was gone, like all the nightmares he's had since childhood.

They finally came into another room- some sort of control room, but Lance really wanted to say it was a med bay for some reason. As they walked in, two pods rose from the floor. Lance took a step towards, the nearest, which held a beautiful girl with white hair and pointed ears.

He put a hand to the glass.

"Are these guys dead?" said Hunk hesitantly.

Lance shook his head. "I- I don't think so- I-"

The pod opened suddenly, and the girl fell out with a cry. "Father!"

Lance was quick to catch her, and she looked up at him. For a moment, they stared at each other.

"Are you alright?" he asked her carefully.

"I- who are you?" she managed. "Where- where am I?"

"It's okay," he said. "My name's Lance. You're- well, I'm not entirely sure myself. It's a castle, and I think this is the med bay, or something similar?"

Her brow furrowed. "Your- your ears."

"Um, yes?" he said.

"They're hideous!" she exclaimed. "What is wrong with them?"

He blinked dumbly at her. "Um, nothing?"

She broke away from him then fiercely shoved him to the ground. "Who are you? Where is King Alfor? What are you doing in the castle?"

"King Alfor-" he echoed. The name sounded familiar- was there like a movie character named Alfor, maybe? "Look, a giant blue lion brought us here. That's all we know!"

"How do you have the Blue Lion?" she demanded. "What happened to her paladin? What are you all doing here- I- how _long_ has it been?"

"I'm sorry," said Shiro peacefully as Lance stood and wandered over to the other pod. The man inside had a warm sort of familiarity. He kind of reminded Lance of his dad, back on Earth. "We don't know what you're talking about, but if you explain, maybe we can help."

"I am Princess Allura of Planet Altea," she said formally. Lance's head snapped up to stare at her.

He was starting to think a movie wasn't why he recognised these names.

"I must find out how long we've been asleep," she said, moving to a control board thing and poking at it.

Lance's attention was drawn as the man stumbled out of his pod. He blinked, then jumped into a fighting stance. "Enemy combatants!"

He nearly fell over, but regained his composure. "Lucky you I've got a case of the old sleep chamber knees! Otherwise I'd-"

He stopped suddenly as he observed Lance.

"You'd what?" Lance asked curiously. He frowned. "Uh, you okay?"

The man shook his head. "I'm sorry- you look just like-"

"It can't be!" Allura gasped.

The man turned his attention to her and walked over to join her. Lance followed a moment later.

"Princess?" said the man hesitantly.

She gave him a wide-eyed, terrified look. "We've been asleep for over ten thousand years!"

 **A/N: Again, you guys, I'm really sorry this took so long. I've had a bunch of bad family stuff going on. Part of the reason I'm updating today is to distract myself because guess who hates being sad?**

 **So I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Love you all bunches! 3**


	5. The Rise of Voltron: Part Four

Lance, too, would have been quite shocked to find out he'd been asleep for ten thousand years, but he also had a certain amount of respect for these aliens because, well, that was an impressive amount of time to sleep for.

He didn't voice this because of the shocked horror on their faces. It obviously wasn't a very good thing. He supposed it wouldn't be. Unless Alteans had a really, really, really long life span, cryogenic freezing aside, most everyone the two knew were probably long gone.

"Planet Altea," breathed Allura in horror. "All of our solar system- they've been _destroyed_ \- Coran- Father-"

The man- Coran- put a hand on her shoulder and watched her sadly as her face contorted into rage.

"Zarkon," she snarled.

Lance was kind of sick of recognising these names and not knowing how, but at least this time he wasn't the only one.

"Zarkon?" repeated Shiro in mild horror. He had jerked into a rigid, almost terrified stance at the name. Lance wondered if maybe he had heard the name from his kidnappers.

"King of the Galra," said Allura softly. "A vile creature. He was enemy to all free people- he was-"

"-my captor," said Shiro. Allura stared at him in shock. Lance winced. That kinda sucked- it sounded a lot like the man responsible for Altea's destruction was still alive when everything Allura loved was, well, not. "I remember now."

"Impossible," she said in a horrified whisper. "It has been ten thousand years, he cannot be still alive!"

"I don't know how, but I do know that's the name I heard," said Shiro. "He's been looking for some super weapon called Voltron."

"Voltron," she murmured. "Voltron is the only thing that can defeat Zarkon, and so we must find it before he does."

"Well, the Blue Lion is out front," offered Lance. Coran stared at him again.

"And her pilot?" he asked rather hopefully.

Lance winced. "Ah, we didn't find any pilots. Just the lion. Sorry."

Coran sighed. "I expected as much."

"We must begin the search for Voltron," said Allura, starting forward. Coran grabbed her shoulder with a stern look.

"Princess, it's been ten thousand years," he said. "You must eat."

"I'm not hungry," she said, turning away from him and lowering her eyes.

"Woah," said Hunk. "Like, I haven't eaten since breakfast? And I'm starving!"

"Well, you've thrown up like five times," Pidge pointed out.

"Good point," conceded Hunk.

"I can't believe you created such incredibly technology ten thousand years ago," said Shiro. Lance sort of had to agree, because it looked like something out of a really cool sci-fi movie, but it also looked really _normal_. "It must have been an amazing place."

"Yeah," Lance couldn't help but agree wistfully.

"It was," Coran admitted, "but now it's gone, and Allura and I- we're the last Alteans left."

Lance couldn't imagine being the last human left, without his parents and siblings and nephews and nieces and everyone he loved. This Zarkon- it seemed it was a good thing they'd led that ship away from Earth. They could have easily destroyed his home, just like they had Allura and Coran's ten thousand years ago.

He just hoped these Galra would stay away.

A gasp from Allura tore him from his musings. His head snapped to her in alarm, but there wasn't any danger. She was smiling and allowing a few mice to crawl into her opened hands.

"It seems," she murmured, "we aren't the only ones."

Lance wasn't quite sure why she was so delighted by a few _mice_ , of all things, but he supposed if Earth had been destroyed and, like, a couple of Earth-mice suddenly showed up, he'd be pretty pleased too.

Then, suddenly, the whole room lit up red and sharp, shrill alarms shot off. Lance sucked in a sharp breath. The alarms were too much like- _exactly like_ \- if he reached too far back in his memory- when everything was red and alarms. His parents had hesitantly assumed that perhaps he was remembering a fire-

"A Galra battleship has set its tracker on us!" Coran exclaimed in shock, drawing Lance out of the blurred past and back into the present.

"How did they find us?" asked Allura in distress. Her face twisted, and she turned on them the glare hotly. Lance instinctively shot his hands in the air; Hunk, after a moment's hesitation, followed his lead. "Did _you_ lead them here?"

"What- no!" Lance protested. "Or, if we did, it's Keith's fault!"

"Whatever makes you feel better," Keith shot back. " _You're_ the one who had the bright idea to get us stuck on the other side of a mysterious wormhole!"

"I'll stick you in a wormhole!" Lance bit out- probably one of his worst comebacks to date.

"Quiet, cadets!" Shiro snapped. "This is no time to place blame. We have to work as a team. Coran, how long before they arrive?"

"At their current speed?" Coran mused. "Hmm, well, carry the two… I'd say, ah, a couple of quintents."

"Quintents?" repeated Hunk worriedly. "That's like, days? I hope? Right?"

"Twenty vargas," Coran offered. Lance decided the sunny, cheerful man was way cooler than Keith. "Average time for planets holding sentient life to make a full rotation around their axes! If that's what your day is supposed to be-"

"Right, right," said Hunk. "A couple of days."

"Good," said Allura darkly. "Let them come. By the time they get here, you five will have reformed Voltron. Together, we will destroy Zarkon's empire."

Lance wasn't sure how putting the hands of the universe in the hands of four teenagers and one whatever Shiro was could be a good idea, but Allura seemed pretty certain, and Lance wasn't about to argue with a space princess.

"Princess," said Shiro rather formally, "there are five of these lions, correct? How do we find the other fur?"

"Oh, that's easy!" chirped Coran brightly. "King Alfor connected the lions to Allura's quintessence! She can find out exactly where they are!"

Allura typed out something on the panel-thing, and suddenly the room was filled with galaxies and stars and planets and coordinates- including colour-coded coordinates of each of the lions.

"Woah," Pidge breathed. "These are coordinates- is the Black Lion here too?"

"Aha!" said Coran. "Look at your primitive synapses firing away on their little brain cage!"

Pidge glared rather sinisterly at him, clearly not pleased to have his intelligence referred to as _primitive_.

"Very observant," Allura praised. "The Black Lion is, in fact, in the castle."

"In order to keep the Black Lion out of Zarkon's hands," Coran said gravely, "King Alfor locked her in the castle. She may only be freed when all four other lions are present."

"Each of the lions choose their pilots," said Allura softly, "and luckily, it seems to me that we have five skilled pilots perfect for our lions."

"Um," said Hunk, "you know, I'm not-"

Lance elbowed him in the side, shaking his head. Pidge muttered something about driving a cyber space lion before ever driving a car.

Yeah, Lance really wasn't sure that Allura was making a smart decision in putting the universe in _their_ hands.

"This is a mystical bond that cannot be forced," continued Allura. "The quintessence of the pilot is reflected in his or her lion. Together- together you will be greater than anything science could explain."

Pidge's lip jutted out and he looked ready to protest, but Shiro clapped a hand on his shoulder and gave him a look that made the smaller boy glare at the floor.

"The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron," said Allura, eyes focussed on Shiro- her first good decision so far, if you asked Lance, Shiro was practically born to lead. "She needs a born leader, someone in control at all times- someone whose men will follow him without any hesitation. I can see that in you, Shiro, and so you will pilot the Black Lion."

Shiro nodded solemnly.

"The Green Lion," Allura continued, "has an inquisitive personality and thus needs a pilot of intellect and daring. Pidge, I can already tell that you are brave and smart. You will pilot the Green Lion."

Pidge looked torn between bouncing up and down in excitement and bitterly informing the princess that he didn't even have a learner's permit, and instead nodded stiffly.

"The Blue Lion," said Allura softly, and Lance stood up straighter as her eyes focussed on him and his brow furrowed, "is the friendliest and most accepting of the lions. She and her pilot are confident and cheerful. Lance, the Blue Lion has already chosen you as her pilot."

"She knows the best when she sees it," he said cockily, shooting her one of his famous Sweep-Her-Off-Her-Feet grins. She raised an unimpressed eyebrow and pointedly turned away from him.

"The Yellow Lion is caring and kind," said Allura as Hunk stiffened awkwardly, looking torn between saluting her or just standing there. "His pilot is one who puts others first- whose heart is mighty. Hunk, you will pilot the Yellow Lion, and as a leg, you will lift the team up and hold them together."

Hunk swallowed and nodded fervently.

"The Red Lion is… temperamental, and the most difficult to master," Allura said, turning at last to Keith. "She is fast and agile, but also unstable. Her pilot relies on instincts, not just skill, and so, Keith, I believe, you will pilot the Red Lion."

Keith nods once, rather sharply.

"What?" scoffed Lance. " _Keith_?"

Keith was like, pure skill, as far as Lance knew, although temperamental was definitely a word he would use to describe Mullet-Head.

"I cannot find the Red Lion's coordinates," said Allura regretfully. "There must be something wrong with the castle- it _has_ been ten thousand years."

"Don't worry, Allura, we'll find it soon," said Coran. "They don't call me the Coranic for nothing- it sounds like mechanic, you see, so Coranic, mechanic- not an _exact_ match, but- it is similar."

Lance laughed despite himself and shot Coran a grin. The man blinked at him in surprise, then grinned back.

Yeah, they were gonna be friends.

The mini lion holograms Allura had place in front of each of them roared and ran to the centre. In a flurry of movement, they came together to form into the giant robot Lance had seen in the vision from Blue.

"Once united, you will form Voltron, the most powerful warrior in any galaxy- the Defender of the Universe," Allura said rather grandly.

"Awesome!" exclaimed Hunk, before shaking his head. "Wait, okay, so like I get that we will be _in_ the lions, but how do the lions become legs? And- and arms? And- and is this going to be a long, 'cause if it is, I should use the restroom, do you have restrooms? Toilets?"

"We don't have time," said Shiro, and Hunk groaned. "Pidge and I will go after the Green Lion. Lance, you and Hunk go for the yellow one. Keith, stay here, and the moment you locate the Red Lion, go and get it."

All of them nodded, and Lance nudged his old friend with a wide grin that promised nothing but mischief and adventure. Hunk gave him an unimpressed look that translated roughly to, "If you almost drown us _again_ , I am friendship-disowning you."

"In the meantime," said Allura, "I will prepare the castle defences. They will be sorely needed."

"I'll ready a pod and load in the coordinates for the Green Lion!" said Coran brightly. "And then off you can go!"

"Come on, Hunk, let's get to Blue," Lance said excitedly. "I think you still need to clean up your mess."

"Ugh," Hunk moaned.

Lance grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room, waving to the others of the group. Coran was the only one that waved back, but he did so jovially and with a large grin.

Yeah. He was way cooler than Keith. They were _definitely_ going to be friends.

 **A/N: Hey guys! I'm back! I've had, like, the worst summer ever, but I did find time to write this! Hopefully this chapter is worth the wait, and I'm sorry I made you guys wait so long again! I need to get better at this. XD**

 **Also, how about season three, huh? What a ride!**

 **Love you all and thanks for reading! 3**


	6. The Rise of Voltron: Part Five

"Does Allura know I don't really know how to pilot anything? I mean I read the books at the Garrison but I get carsick so I'll obviously get space-lion-sick too. And anyway just because I understand the Garrison ships doesn't mean I understand the magic alien warships. Do you think she chose me just because I was wearing yellow? Coran had some yellow on him, she could have chosen Coran. Oh man, what if-"

"Hunk, calm down," Lance said as they walked into the Blue Lion's cockpit. "You're going to be fine. You're like, a genius, so you'll be able to figure out the Yellow Lion in no time."

"We were all colour-coded," he said mulishly.

"Coincidence," said Lance. "Shiro is totally leader material. Pidge is a tiny brave nerd dude, I'm _obviously_ confident and cheerful, Keith is temperamental and unstable, and you're totally a pillar of strength and niceness and all that."

Suddenly, Coran's voice filtered over the comms, "Alright, Paladins! We can only keep the wormholes open for a few vargas! You'll need to be fast, but luckily both planets are rather peaceful, so if you do get stuck, they'll probably be a relaxing place to live out the rest of your lives! Enjoy the trip!"

"Wait, no-" Pidge protested over the comms.

"I don't wanna live out the rest of my life on Yellow Lion Planet!" lamented Hunk.

"Coran, wait a second!" Lance exclaimed.

Too late. The wormholes opened, and Blue shot through without Lance's permission. He scowled, and Blue sent him smug, triumphant feelings. Then alarms set off, much to all of their alarm.

Blue howled in alarm in Lance's mind as ships started shooting at them. Lance tried to calm her down and manoeuvre her at the same time, which was getting exceedingly more difficult with both her and Hunk screaming in his ears.

"No, no, no, no, no!" wailed Hunk. "I'm too young to die!"

"Blue, calm down!" Lance blurted, dodging another laser blast. "I know you're not the scaredy-cat lion so quit acting like it!"

Oh, he could practically he feel her offense at that statement, but it did snap her out of her panic. It became much easier to dodge when his lion was working with him.

"I thought Coran said these planets were peaceful!" Hunk managed.

"Well, maybe that means something different in Altean!" said Lance. This planet was definitely the opposite of peaceful.

Hunk leaned over his shoulder, a bit too green for Lance's liking but holding himself together well. "According to the coordinates, we're right on top of the Yellow Lion- it's down where they're mining, I bet they don't even know the lion is there. Or- or they just got here, and they're mining _for_ the lion? What do you think? Lance? Lance?"

"I don't really care!" Lance said. "Just grab it. I'm dropping you down there."

"What- me- there?" stammered Hunk. "Oh, well, actually, today's not good for me, maybe later-"

"No, Hunk, now," exclaimed Lance. "I'll cover you, don't worry!"

"What if the Yellow Lion doesn't like me?" Hunk asked in horror. "What if- or, what if I can't get in? What if I get shot? What if I start crying- _no, it's too late! I'm already crying!_ "

"Hunk, no time for questions!" Lance said. "Blue?"

"Dude, no-" Hunk's protests came too late as Blue dropped him onto the planet. Lance was pleased to see him making his way into the mine relatively unhindered, muttering to himself as he went.

"Alright, Blue, let's take care of these fighters!" Lance said.

Blue roared in agreement, sending images and thoughts to Lance: _revenge, revenge, my pilot, my creator, I will avenge you-_

Lance smiled grimly. "Don't you worry, Blue. We'll definitely avenge your old pilot _and_ your creator, and we can start with these guys."

They fired at the fighters, keeping careful watch to cover Hunk and keep themselves safe as well. Fighting with Blue was exhilarating, even if Lance didn't know all the controls. Blue tried to send signals of what to do, but even she had to sheepishly admit that she didn't know everything. Not even her creator had known everything she could do from what Lance gathered.

Lance really wanted to know who this creator guy was that he could create robots without knowing how they worked.

Then the worst happened. One of the fighters fired a shot at the mine shaft Hunk had gone down, and it collapsed. Lance screamed before he could stop himself, Blue picking up on and mimicking his horror.

"Hunk- no, _Hunk_!" he yelled.

Hunk was his best friend- he couldn't lose _Hunk_ \- magic space robot lions were really cool but they weren't worth losing his best friend.

"Come on, Hunk," Lance pleaded, watching the rubble for any sign of movement.

Blue yelped an alarm in his mind, but before either of them could do anything, they were hit and spirally to the ground. Lance tried to pull Blue back into the air, but he wasn't having any luck.

"Mayday, mayday!" he screamed, even though that wouldn't do him any good. "We're going down! We're going down-"

They hit the ground and skidded. Lance braced himself in his seat, but was still thrown forward. He sat up, and glanced outside in alarm. Several ships were aiming at him now. There was no way he could move in time.

"Oh, no," Lance breathed.

Blue was howling again, a mantra of _NOT MY NEW PALADIN, NOT MY PILOT_ buffeting Lance like waves on a particularly windy day- or perhaps during a hurricane. Lance wished he could do something, anything to console her, but all he could to was brace for impact and wonder if this was really it, if he would ever see his family again-

The lasers never hit. Explosions sounded, but no pain followed, and Lance dared to crack his eyes open to see the Yellow Lion standing protectively in front of him, largely unharmed from taking the hit that might have killed Lance and Blue.

"Lance!" Hunk's voice came over the comms, and moments later his face popped up near the controls. Lance had never been more relieved to see his friend in his life. "Are you okay?"

"Thanks to you!" he said, letting out a relieved laugh. "I thought you were dead! And- and you jumped in front of all those shots- for _me_!"

"I wish I could say anything for you, bud, but, well, I was actually trying to get out of the way," Hunk said sheepishly. "Luckily what this thing lacks in speed, it more than makes up for in armour! Man, it can take a beating- oh, crud, incoming!"

Allura's voice filtered over the comms just in time. "Paladins, please hurry back. I cannot hold these wormholes open much longer."

"You don't need to tell us twice!" Lance exclaimed.

Hunk groaned. "I hate wormholes."

Both of them sped through the wormhole. Yellow took a glancing hit and sent Hunk spiralling- luckily towards the wormhole. When they re-emerged, they were back near the castle. Lance breathed a sigh of relief as they landed and exited the lions.

Hunk ran over and grabbed Lance in a crushing hug.

"Woah- hey, dude," Lance laughed, hugging his friend back.

"Sorry," said Hunk. "It kinda scared me when all those shots almost killed you."

"Scared me when the caved in the mine," said Lance. "I thought I'd lost you, buddy!"

"Agree to never repeat the experience?" said Hunk.

"Agreed," nodded Lance.

They made their way back into the castle and up to what must have been the control room. Allura's shoulders dropped in relief when they walked in. Shiro and Pidge were already back.

"You made it," she said.

"Barely," said Lance with a wince. "That was a nightmare. I almost puked- felt like Hunk!"

"Think of how I felt," said Hunk, face going green in remembrance. "I _am_ Hunk."

Lance patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. Pidge and Shiro exchanged looks.

"Yeah," said Pidge, "we had it rough too."

"Have you found the Red Lion yet?" Shiro asked the Alteans.

"Actually, Allura just located it!" Coran said brightly. "There's good news and bad news. Good news: it's nearby! Bad news: it's on the Galra ship now orbiting Arus. But, wait, more good news: we're Arus!"

"They're already here?" Shiro asked in horror.

Coran winced. "Ah, yes. Guess my calculations were a tad off. Finger counting- well, it's more of an _art_ than a science, really."

It was as if on cue that a screen flickered to life in front of them. On the screen was a man with purple fur, rather cat-like if you asked Lance, with glowing yellow eyes- his mind automatically labelled him as Galra, and from there Lance was sure to tack on evil to the description.

"Princess Allura," the Galra said formally, "this is Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire.I come on behalf of Emperor Zarkon, Lord of the Known Universe."

Both Allura and Coran's faces twisted into something between anger and grief, but they were each quick to try and hide it. Lance mentally winced. To everyone in the universe, it had been ten thousand years since the fall of Altea. To Allura and Coran- it had been mere hours.

"I am here to confiscate the lions," Sendak continued. "Turn them over to me, or I will destroy this planet."

The screen flickered away. Allura's fists clenched.

"Alright, let's not panic," said Shiro.

"What? Not panic?" spluttered Hunk. "The scary purple alien dude is driving his battleship towards us and we only have four lions-"

"Technically only three working lions," Pidge offered.

Hunk's right eye twitched. "Right, _thank you_ , Pidge. Three lions and a castle that's ten thousand years old-"

"Actually, it's ten thousand six hundred years old," said Coran, puffing up proudly. "You see, it was built by my grandfather-"

" _Thank you_ , Coran," Hunk gritted out. "Thank you for that. See? Perfect time to panic."

"Wait!" said Allura. "We can activate the castle's particle barrier-"

"it won't hold against Sendak's ion cannon forever," said Coran gravely. "The Galran technology must have advanced since we last fought them."

"So now we panic?" asked Hunk in a small voice.

"No," said Shiro. "We just have to figure out our plan of action quickly."

"We could pop through a wormhole and live to fight another day?" Lance suggested, even though he subconsciously hated the idea of leaving the castle behind. There was something familiar and nice about it, and he didn't want it destroyed like the rest of Altea.

How did it even get on Arus, anyway?

"Yes, I second," said Hunk. "We tried, right? Yeah? Gave it our best shot, couldn't do it, only got three, can't form Voltron. We could- we could make a snake. Or a worm. To go through the wormhole."

"We can't just abandon Arus!" Pidge protested. "These Galra will just keep destroying planets and taking prisoners until we stop them!"

He was right, of course, but Lance didn't know how they could possibly manage to stop them.

"Maybe if we run, Sendak will follow?" said Hunk hopefully. "Leave Arus alone? Like with Earth?"

"Or he could destroy the planet and follow us anyway," said Keith. "We have to stay. It's our only option."

"Here's an option- shut your _quiznak_ ," Lance snapped at him, briefly amused by the Altean's terribly offended looks.

"I don't think you're using that word correctly," Keith retorted.

"What do you know, Mullet?" Lance shot back.

"We're staying," Keith said.

"Leaving!" Lance exclaimed.

"Staying!" Pidge cut in.

"Snake!" Hunk yelped.

"Cadets!" Shiro snapped. All four of them snapped to attention. Lance's face burned in embarrassment for having to be called out like a kid, but at least all the others had been too. Shiro nodded and turned to Allura. "These are your lions, Princess. You've dealt with the Galra Empire before. What do you think is the best course of action?"

"I- I- I don't know," she managed, looking between them worriedly.

Coran's brow furrowed, as if thinking, and then his face lit up.

"Perhaps," he said, "perhaps your father can help."

"My father?" said Allura almost hopefully.

Coran nodded solemnly. "Follow me, Princess."

The five humans watched quietly as the two Alteans left the room. Lance wasn't sure if Alteans had like, ghost summoning machines or something, but he wasn't complaining.

They needed all the help they could get.

 **A/N: What? Two updates in a day? Well, honestly, forgot to post last chapter when I wrote it... oops. Hope you guys like this chapter too! It was fun to write- lots of Lance and Blue and Hunk freaking out.**

 **Love you guys! Thanks for reading!**


	7. The Rise of Voltron: Part Six

"Are we- are we really ready for this?" Pidge asked meekly as soon as Allura and Coran were out of the room. "I mean, aside from Shiro- we're just kids. Can we really have the fate of the universe on our heads?"

"If we don't, who will?" asked Keith almost bitterly. "This is our responsibility now."

"There are worse people it could fall to," said Lance. "Well, I mean, we can't get much worse than _Keith_ -"

"Hey!" Keith protested.

"I won't sugar-coat it," said Shiro gravely. "The Galra are ruthless, merciless monsters. I don't remember much- but I do remember their cruelty. If we can truly stop them- I think we have to before another genocide happens like it sounds like it did on Altea."

"I'm with Shiro," said Lance. "Allura and Coran lost all of their family and friends. Allura's dad- who knows what family Coran had- I don't want that to happen to anyone else or, even worse, to us. Earth could be next, guys. It's on their radar now."

"Um, but, if we, the Paladins, are from Earth, who' to say they won't target it just because of that?" said Hunk. "We'd put our families in less danger just- just going home."

Lance winced. Hunk had a point. Mama and Papa and all his siblings and nieces and nephews may not be his blood family, but they are his family and he didn't want to lose them. The Galra could easily use their families, their planet against them.

"Allura and Coran don't have a home," he finally said quietly. "It would be wrong of us to abandon them."

Shiro gave him an appraising, proud look. "I agree, Lance. Pidge, Keith?"

"Lance is right," said Keith, and Lance internally celebrated.

Pidge nodded as well. "I do feel like there are others more qualified than us. I mean, only two of us can actually pilot a ship."

Lance stared at her and scowled. "Excuse you, Blue and I work very well together."

"Besides," said Pidge, "I have some things I need to find out."

The small boy looked scary-determined. Lance had to hand it to him- he could be threatening if he wanted to.

Hunk sighed. "Yeah, okay. But I'm still hungry. Coran promised food and he' yet to deliver food."

Lance patted him on the shoulder. "Less stuff to puke up during the fight to come, bud."

Hunk groaned.

Allura and Coran chose that moment to join them again. Allura looked more determined than ever, though her eyes were distinctly bright and Lance had a feeling she'd been crying or near-tears very recently.

"Paladins," she addressed them, "you were brought here for a reason. Only you can pilot Voltron. We must fight- and keep fighting- until we bring the end of Zarkon's reign of terror. Voltron is the universe's only hope- _we_ are the universe's only hope."

Shiro nodded and gave her a grim smile. "We're with you, Princess."

"Then follow me," she said.

* * *

The princess had led them to a room full of armour. Lance found himself drawn to the blue set, resting a hand on the glass protecting it. The sight of it brought a warm familiarity to his heart, the same familiarity that came when he hugged his mother back home.

Coran stood beside him, observing the armour sadly.

"It will suit your nicely, my boy," he said softly.

Lance glanced at him in surprise. Coran wasn't looking at him. He was still staring at the armour with the expression of someone looking at the last remnants of something very precious.

"These are your suits of armour," declared Allura.

"Impressive," said Shiro.

"Aahh," said Hunk awkwardly.

Lance watched Coran a moment before removing his armour from its casing. The man looked sad, but he plastered on an encouraging smile for Lance.

"It's your armour now," he said.

"Coran, did you-" Lance started to ask.

"Suit up!" ordered Allura before he could finish. Coran nodded to Lance and left his side to go speak to Allura. Lance sighed and followed the other paladins out of the room to change.

The armour did fit him nicely. It seemed to resize itself to be perfect, and Lance felt right at home in the armour. He wondered if he was actually just the exact same size as the old paladin or if it actually had resized himself. It didn't matter. This armour carried and legacy and a weight that now rested on Lance's shoulders. A swell of determination rushed over him and he forced himself to stand taller. He would do the former blue paladin proud.

He was one of the last to return to the control room, followed by Hunk. Shiro nodded as they walked in.

Allura handed him a strange looking device that might have been a game controller but not really. Hunk was given one as well.

"The bayard is the traditional weapon of the paladins," said Allura, lips twitching into what might have been a smile. "Each of you will have a distinct form."

Lance willed his bayard to turn into something, even if he didn't know what to do. To his shock, it morphed into a beautiful blue gun- perfect for sniping and long-range sharpshooting. He let out a laugh and started testing his aim. The gun felt natural in his hands, as if it was made for him.

He wondered if his predecessor had had a gun too, or if this form was unique to him and him alone. He was a pretty good sharpshooter, if he did say so himself.

"Woah!" Hunk exclaimed, and Lance glanced over to see him briefly stumble under the weight of his new blaster. He hadn't been sure what Hunk would have, but the blaster wasn't too shocking. Pidge's weapon, as he looked, didn't seem very special. It seemed at first to be a tiny blade of sorts

"It's a cut little weapon!" Lance cooed, intentionally irritating the smaller boy.

Pidge shoved it into Lance's side and he yelped as the equivalent of a taser shocked him.

"Yeah," Pidge said. "It is kinda cute."

Keith had a sword- somehow that didn't shock Lance. He totally seemed like the kind that would use a sword. Shiro had-

Nothing.

Shiro had nothing.

Why did Shiro have nothing? The guy had to be good with some kind of weapon.

"I am afraid the black bayard was lost- with its paladin," said Allura awkwardly and apologetically.

Shiro smiled, masking his kind of obvious disappointment. "I can make do."

Lance winced in sympathy. Maybe the Alteans had some spare weapons lying around somewhere for Shiro to use.

"Keith, you will need to retrieve the Red Lion from the Galra ship," said Allura.

Keith made a face. "That's a pretty big search radius if you ask me. The ship is huge."

"No, no, you can find its energy!" said Hunk.

"Yeah, like you did with Blue," said Lance, "in the desert."

"You made fun of me for that," said Keith dubiously.

"Yes, I did, and I don't regret or take it back," said Lance. "But now it turns out that it's useful."

"Don't forget, Keith, that the Red Lion I extremely temperamental," said Allura, wincing as if remembering the lion rejecting former paladins or something. He wondered if there was a funny story behind that and resolved to ask later. "You'll need to earn its respect."

Keith nodded determinedly.

"Alright, here's the plan," said Shiro. "The Galra Empire knows we have the Blue and Yellow Lions, but not that we have the Green Lion. Lance, Hunk, you'll draw their attention by pretending to give yourselves up. Meanwhile, Pidge will use the Green Lion to sneak us on board. We'll go find the Red Lion. Hunk, Lance, you'll need to take out that ion cannon."

"Sir, yes, sir," said Lance, half joking and half completely serious.

"Quickly now," said Coran. "Get to your lions! We have no time to waste!"

They'd left the lions parked outside the castle, so the group ran together to their lions. Shiro and Keith followed Pidge into Green, and Lance and Hunk entered their respective lion. Blue purred as Lance sat down, and he chuckled.

"Alright, Blue, babe, let's hope this plan works," he said

She, in return, sent him feelings of confidence.

They took to the sky, and Lance and Hunk headed straight towards the Galra battleship.

"Ready, bud?" Lance asked Hunk over the comms.

"No," he moaned back.

Lance laughed and turned on a link to the Galra ship.

"Attention Galra Commander Sendak, do not fire," Lance said as professionally as he could manage. "We are surrendering our lions."

Then he turned off the link and grimaced. "I hope this works."

Then, louder, "Pidge! What's your ETA?"

"We're in," the younger boy said smugly.

Lance nodded in relief, then suddenly a beam of light shone down upon he and Hunk. Blue screeched in alarm in his mind, and Lance tried to mentally calm her down.

"What is this thing?" Hunk exclaimed.

"Our signal to get out of here!" Lance exclaimed. "Go, go, go!"

They darted out of the beams reach before it could completely focus on them. Blue was furious, which could be a good and a bad thing.

"Hunk, take out that ion cannon!" Lance yelled.

"Ten-four!" Hunk exclaimed.

Lance watched as the Yellow Lion attacked the cannon, and he and Blue started shooting at the ship themselves. He glanced back towards the castle. There was no particle barrier anywhere in sight, and his worry spiked.

"We gotta cover them," Lance said, and Blue seemed to agree. He had no idea how long it was going to take Keith to work with the Red Lion- by Blue's mental scoff, he assumed that the other lion was particularly finicky and it was going to take some time.

"I think I got the cannon!" said Hunk.

"Alright!" Lance celebrated. "Alright, Blue, let's work on taking these guys out- woo-hoo! YEAH! This is so much better without Hunk vomiting!"

"Hey!" Hunk complained.

Blue did a flip in mid-air, likely just to show off, but it was exhilarating and Lance certainly couldn't argue with her. He and Hunk both fired on the ship again, and Lance saw a force-field flicker into existence around the castle. Letting out a breath of relief, he returned his attention fully to the ship, watching worriedly for any sign of the Red of Green Lions.

Heh. Red and Green Lions. The Christmas Lions.

Okay, yeah, Lance totally deserved the mental scolding he just got from Blue.

"Pi-idge, how are you guys doing in there?" Lance called over the comms worriedly.

Aaand he didn't listen.

Shocker.

"Ah- ah, Lance, they're firing on us!" Hunk exclaimed.

Blue dove out of the way and fired another shot at the ship, this time without Lance's permission.

"Hunk, I thought you got it!" Lance exclaimed.

"Alright, alright, I'll go again," Hunk griped. The Yellow Lion tackled the ion cannon again, and Lance dodged more shots aimed at him. "Come on, you stupid thing- _just- break-_ AHA! Hunk, one, scary purple aliens, zero! Ah- Pidge! You made it!"

"Suppose you could say the red cat is out of the bag," said Pidge mischievously.

"Haha! Alright!" exclaimed Lance.

"Red wasn't in a bag!" Keith protested.

"Let's get the Black Lion," said Shiro determinedly.

"Aye-aye, Captain Shiro!" Lance chirped. "Me and Hunk and Keith can cover you."

"Not for long, like, don't take too long," said Hunk.

"We got this, Shiro," said Keith.

"Heh, you got the Red Lion to trust you after all!" Lance said.

"So I did," said Keith fondly. "And she's amazing."

"Hate to break it to you, but Blue is the best lion of the lot," said Lance proudly. Blue's purr strengthened in his mind, and she sent him back something that seemed to roughly translate to _best paladin of the lot_.

"Princess, we're coming in," Shiro said over the comms. A portion of the particle barrier banished, and Green slipped through.

"Alright," said Keith. "Let's keep these guys busy until they come back."

Lance grinned. "You don't have to tell me twice!"

 **A/N: Hey guys! Surprise! It's another update! Coran feels and lion bonding- yay! I had fun writing this chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed reading it! Love you guys! 3**


	8. The Rise of Voltron: Part Seven

It luckily didn't take Pidge and Shiro too long to return. Lance let out a triumphant whoop as the Black and Green Lions joined them.

His celebration was unfortunately short-lived. Smaller ships shot out alongside the big ship, and Allura's voice filtered over the comms: "Sendak is entering the Arusian atmosphere! We need Voltron now!"

And, as if on cue, the ion cannon Hunk had taken out fired on the castle. The particle barrier protected it, but Lance still winced.

"Aw, man," said Hunk. "Those Galra repair things way too fast!"

"The barrier is going to get weaker and weaker with every blast," Coran warned. "Once the shield goes down, the castle will be defenceless!"

Lance grimaced. They definitely had to take out the big Galra ship- or at least its ion cannon- before the shield went down.

"We can give you cover with the castle defences," said Allura, "but you must form Voltron now, or we'll all be destroyed."

"Encouraging," muttered Hunk. "Just leave it up to the newbies, that's- that's great."

"Relax, Hunk, we'll be fine!" Lance said.

"Listen up, Team Voltron!" Shiro exclaimed. "We can only succeed if we give it everything we've got. Things don't look good, but I know we can do this! Are you with me?"

Lance nodded determinedly.

"I'm nodding," said Hunk, "is everyone else nodding?"

"Yes," said Lance, as Keith and Pidge echoed him.

"Then let's do this!" Shiro declared.

"Yeah!" Lance cheered.

"How?" said Pidge.

There was a brief silence. "Good question. Does anyone have any idea how to form Voltron?"

"I don't see a 'combine into giant space robot' button on my glowy dashboard," said Hunk apologetically.

The ship fired a laser at them, and they scattered in order to avoid being hit. The smaller ships started attacking them with fervour, giving them no time to stop and think about forming Voltron.

"Agh! Can't they quit it for one minute so we can figure this out?" complained Pidge.

"Lance?" said Shiro expectantly.

"Don't look at me!" Lance protested. "Blue isn't giving me any hints!"

"Combine!" yelled Hunk, slamming Yellow into Red.

"Hey!" Keith yelped.

"Sorry," said Hunk, "thought that would work."

Blue sent him the image of forming Voltron again, as if trying to push him to realise something. He blinked, then grinned.

"Quickly, Paladins! We're low on energy!" Allura exclaimed.

"I have an idea!" said Lance. "What if we fly in formation? Like in the vision Blue sent us before, remember?"

"That might just work," said Shiro. "Alright! On my cue- Keith, Lance, right flank. Pidge, Hunk, left flank. Three- two- Voltron!"

"You skipped one!" wailed Hunk as they shot into the sky after Shiro.

"Nothing's happening!" Keith snarled in frustration.

Blue seemed a bit confused as to just why nothing was happening- she'd evidently been absolutely certain flying in formation would do the trick. Lance reached out and patted the dashboard comfortingly.

"Wait! I feel something!" exclaimed Pidge.

"I do too!" Hunk laughed triumphantly. "It's like we're all being pulled the same way- is this it? Is this the power of Voltron?"

Blue didn't seem very thrilled, and Lance realised why as he looked up.

"Oh, no," said Shiro, tone a strange mixture of resigned exasperation and horror.

"Sendak's ship is sucking us in like a black hole!" Pidge exclaimed.

"Oh, no, _oh, no_ ," Hunk stammered. "I don't care what you say, Shiro, I'm panicking now! Really panicking now!"

"It can't end here!" Pidge managed.

"Oh, no, this is it!" Lance lamented. Blue howled in his mind, and he tried to send her back some sort of apology for failing her so early in the game.

"It's been an honour flying with you, boys," Keith said solemnly.

"No!" Shiro practically roared. "We can do this! We have to believe in ourselves! We're the universe's only hope- we can't give up! Think of your families back home, everything you love! They all depend on us. Everyone depends on us! We can't fail- we _won't fail_!"

"Yeah!" the rest of them cried together. Blue let out a fierce roar, both in Lance's mind and in real life. The other lions did the same, and a rush of energy and power jolted through Lance.

It happened way too quickly for Lance to completely comprehend. The unfamiliar touch of his teammates mind briefly shocked him as their lions came together. Lance let out an exhilarated laugh.

They landed on the Galra ship and punched the ion cannon in the side, preventing its next shot from hitting the castle. Unfortunately, the thing still seemed to be up and running.

"You did it!" Allura exclaimed excitedly.

"I can't believe it!" managed Keith.

"We did it! We formed Voltron!" cheered Pidge.

"I'm a leg!" Hunk bellowed delightedly.

"How- how are we doing this?" Lance asked, his grin never fading as Blue's purrs rumbled in his mind.

"It doesn't matter right now," said Shiro. Despite his professional tone, he seemed just as thrilled as the rest of them. "Let's get that ion cannon!"

"Alright!" said Lance.

The Green and Red Lions each grabbed the cannon, and with a strong yank it was fully detached from the ship Voltron threw it out of the way, and then the Red Lion punched clean through the hull.

"Fire your laser!" Shiro ordered.

"You got it, Shiro!" Keith said. He fired his laser through the ship, and the area exploded. Lance was reminded of a super cool action movie as Voltron moved away from the destruction and kicked through another part of the ship.

"Pidge!" Shiro exclaimed.

"On it!" he chirped, using his laser to blow up more of the ship.

"Haha, this is awesome!" Lance exclaimed.

"Alright, team, straight through the centre!" Shiro said.

The team all let out fierce battle-cries (well, _Lance_ let out a fierce battle-cry, the others may have been screaming, he wasn't sure) and Voltron rocketed through the ship. It finally blew into pieces, falling to Arus in a flaming mass.

"Good work, team," said Shiro. "Let's get back to the castle."

* * *

Allura and Coran were there to greet them outside of the castle when they arrived. Allura was beaming, and Coran was giving them a proud smile that reminded Lance of the look his dad had given him when he got into the Garrison. Lance managed to grin back at both of them as he pulled off his helmet.

Hunk collapsed to the ground and groaned. "Wow."

"Good work, paladins!" Allura exclaimed brightly.

"Thanks, beautiful," said Lance, jokingly shooting the princess one of his best flirty smirks. She glowered at him.

Okay, so she wasn't into that.

"We did it," said Shiro in relief.

"Heck yeah we did," said Keith triumphantly, as if he hadn't almost given up in the middle of the fight like all the rest of them.

"How did we do it?" asked Shiro, relief fading into disbelief.

"I was- I was just- just screaming? The whole time?" said Hunk. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe that was it? The screaming."

Lance shook his head. "Battle-cries, buddy, _battle_ - _cries_."

"Call it what you want, I was screaming," said Hunk.

Shiro put a hand on Pidge's shoulder, giving him a soft, brotherly smile. "We're not going to stop looking until we find your brother and father. I know they'd be proud of you."

Pidge smiled back at him kind of sadly. Lance stared at the small boy in surprise.

What did that mean? Was Pidge really an alien like Lance sometimes imagined? That one was kind of out there. Well, maybe- had Pidge's family been taken by the Galra or-

Lance did a double-take, realising suddenly just how much Pidge Gunderson looked like Matt Holt.

Was he really… Pidge Holt!?

Talk about a plot twist.

"We've won the battle," said Allura, "but we have not won the war. Zarkon will not stop until he has Voltron."

"Well, it's a good thing _you_ paladins know what you're doing," said Coran, a smile pulling at his lips as if he were thinking of some sort of joke. "You're going to have to form Voltron again and again and again-"

Hunk was nodding, but then he stopped and shook his head madly. "Wait, what?"

"We barely survived forming Voltron _once_ ," Lance exclaimed.

"And you were only fighting one measly ship!" said Coran. "Wait 'till you fight a whole squad of them! It won't be easy being the Defenders of the Universe!"

"Defenders of the Universe, huh?" said Shiro. He chuckled. "Well, that has a nice ring to it."

* * *

They finally got the food they were promised: some sort of weird green food goo. It didn't taste so bad, and Coran insisted it had plenty of nutrients.

Speaking of Coran, Lance finally got the chance to talk to the man after what he decided was probably dinner. The other paladins had gone off to do their own thing, and Lance wasn't sure if he had a thing he could be doing besides exploring the castle, so he found Coran.

"Hey," he said.

"Ah, Lance, right?" said Coran brightly. "You're just in time! Would you like to help me with cleaning out these pods?"

"Sure, man," said Lance- he had nothing better to do. "Hey, uh, I wanted to ask you earlier- did you know the old paladins?"

Lance immediately felt bad for asking as Coran's face fell.

"I did indeed," said Coran. "I knew them very well."

"What were they like?" Lance blurted out before he could stop himself.

Coran chuckled. "A lot like you all, I expect, and a lot like their lions. The yellow paladin was kind and caring. He was intimidating when you first met him, but he was about as cuddly as stuffed klanmüirl!"

Lance didn't quite understand that, but he supposed Coran meant something like a teddy bear. That did remind him of Hunk a bit, if he was honest.

"The green paladin- she was something," continued the Altean. "Smart and brave and witty- logical to a fault. She would take a robot any day over actual socialising, but she was friendly in her own way."

"Heh," said Lance, "that sounds like Pidge alright."

"The black paladin," Coran's face fell again. Lance wondered if he was particularly close to the black paladin. "He was a good leader, a strong leader. He could sometimes be a bit of a traditionalist, and occasionally put duty before feelings- but his team was important to him. When he loved, he loved fiercely- too fiercely, some might say."

Lance wondered what that meant, and if it had anything at all to do with Coran. Was he maybe related to the old black paladin?

"The red paladin was the most reckless of the lot," said Coran, a sad smile on his face. "Ah, the man would rush into danger without a second thought for himself, especially if it was to save others. Incredibly intelligent, even if he rarely knew what he was doing. His instincts saved all of the paladins on countless occasions."

That didn't sound much like Keith if you asked Lance. The old red paladin sounded like a pretty cool guy.

"And- and the old blue paladin?" Lance asked hopefully.

Coran's brow furrowed, face twisting in grief for a moment, before he smiled again and looked up at the ceiling.

"If you ask me, she was the best of the lot," he said softly. "Kind. Loyal. Brave. She was a peacekeeper and she was often the team's impulse control. She was the caretaker, in a way, when the others were training too hard, staying up all night to work on projects- you name it. Ah, she had a sense of humour too- I can see her humour in you, my boy. Must be a blue paladin trait."

"Yeah," said Lance after a moment. "She sounds great. You- you were close?"

Coran's shoulders dropped, but he kept smiling. "Yes. We were."

"Sorry for bringing up bad memories," Lance said awkwardly, even though he was really happy to hear about the old paladins. To hear of his predecessor, the one Blue had loved so dearly, simultaneously saddened him and warmed his heart.

"Don't worry, my boy," said Coran, chuckling. "I am glad to talk about them, and I'd gladly tell you of them anytime. It would be an insult to them if I never spoke of them."

"You _just_ lost them," Lance murmured.

"Yes," agreed Coran. "But I've found in my life that grief fades if you remember the good things you had."

Lance stared at him, then nodded. "We haven't touched the pods."

"We'd best get on that," Coran laughed. "Come on. I'll show you what to do!"

 **A/N: Wow, season three has gotten me so inspired! It's another update!**

 **Finally finished with episode one, so yay! We also got some more Lance and Coran bonding... I wasn't sure if I'd have him ask about the former paladins yet, but I decided he probably would. It hurt me to have to leave out Blaytz, but in this AU he isn't a part of Voltron... it saddens me, but, ah, well. He has his place in my other fic.**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Love you guys!**


	9. Some Assembly Required: Part One

Lance wasn't sure why he was wandering the castle this late at night- assuming it was late at night. He couldn't sleep. Exploring seemed like the way to go.

When he was little and he couldn't sleep, he'd wake Javier and they'd sneak out of the house and wander down to the beach to explore in the moonlight. Sometimes they would find all sorts of cool shells, and one time they found like ten crabs in some sort of crab meeting that seven-year-old Lance had figured was very important.

The castle wasn't the beach, and exploring it was mostly leaving him feeling cold and alone. He couldn't go wake his new teammates, and Javier certainly wasn't in space. He was miserably reminded just how far he was from the beaches of Cuba.

He walked into another room. It was a lot emptier than the others, but Lance furrowed his eyebrows in confusion all the same.

"Hello?" he said hesitantly, unable to shake the weird feeling of the room.

There was no response. He shrugged, and turned to leave, when suddenly the room was flooded with light. It was as if the entire room had been replaced with a field of flowers, and in the centre stood a tall, regal looking man with hair the colour of Allura's.

The man looked just as shocked to see Lance as Lance was to see him.

"Aluran?" the man said.

Lance nodded dumbly for a moment, the word so familiar and warm that he just blindly figured the man knew what he was talking about. Then he stopped and shook his head.

"Uh, no," he managed. "It's- I'm Lance. Hi. Sorry. Didn't mean to- to stumble in here."

"My apologies," said the man. "You remind me of my nephew, if he were your age."

"Ah," said Lance. "Cool."

There was a brief, awkward silence.

"You are one of the new paladins," the man guessed.

"Yep- yeah- that's me," said Lance. "Blue paladin. Best of the bunch. Yep."

The man chuckled. "Your predecessor would agree with you."

"Yeah, well, sure she was pretty cool too," said Lance awkwardly. Coran had made it seem that way, at least. "Well, I best go? Didn't mean to disturb you, dude- sir?"

"Just Alfor is fine, my boy," said the man.

Lance blinked at him in shock. "Wait, like Allura's dad?"

Alfor laughed. "Precisely. I take it you did not come seeking my advice as my daughter did?"

"Ah, no," said Lance. "I was just checking out the castle. Couldn't sleep. Do Alteans sleep? I never actually thought of that."

Alfor looked amused. "Yes, Alteans do sleep. Of all the different beings I've met across the universe, most sleep in some way."

"Huh," said Lance. "Cool, cool."

"I do not know what you mean when you keep saying cool," Alfor admitted.

Lance stared at him a moment, and, before he could stop himself, he burst into laughter. "Yeah, that's right, you wouldn't know any Earth stuff. It means- well- awesome?"

"Formidable?" Alfor offered, furrowing his brow and nodding his head.

"It's like- agreement or- it means something's good?" Lance tried again, because cool didn't really mean formidable as far as he knew.

Alfor nodded again. "Ah. _Cool_."

Lance snorted. "You sound like my _tío_ Antonio trying to fit in with his kids- ah, my uncle, I mean."

Alfor raised an eyebrow. "Is this a good thing?"

"Ehh," said Lance. "Sure."

Alfor chuckled.

"You should probably try to get some sleep," he said after a moment. "If I know my daughter, she will have you up early tomorrow. If it helps, there _are_ sleeping garments you can use. I expect they would be much more comfortable than… whatever it is you're wearing."

"Uh, thanks, your majesty," said Lance.

"Just Alfor," the man said. "And Lance?"

Lance blinked at him expectantly.

"You and the other paladins are as welcome to talk to me as my daughter and Coran are," he said with a smile.

Lance grinned. "Thanks, Alfor."

* * *

The next morning, Lance awoke feeling nice and refreshed. He had found the pyjamas Alfor had mentioned, along with some Blue Lion slippers. He wondered how Alfor had known, and if maybe the man had been a paladin in his day, and decided to ask the next chance he got.

"Good morning, everyone," he said brightly as he walked into the control room. "What's going on?"

Allura looked kind of furious. Alfor was probably right, and he probably should have been up way earlier. Coran, at least, looked somewhat amused to see him in the pyjamas.

"Coran and I have been up for vargas," Allura said primly. "We've been getting the castle back in order, and had to test the alarm system. We decided to test you as well. Guess which _failed_."

Lance, personally, hadn't heard any alarms, but by the others' expressions, he supposed they had been the ones that failed- not the alarms.

"Hey, well, you two got to sleep for ten thousand _years_ ," said Hunk. "Monday night, I was still on Earth, and now I've flown across the universe, fought some evil dude named Zarkon, eaten weird space goo in a weird space castle- it's a lot to process in- in like a night. What day is today? It's Tuesday?"

"It's the third quintant of the Spicolian movement!" Coran declared brightly. "Hump day!"

"Yeah, well, it's still a lot to process," said Hunk.

Allura gave them the big-sister-disappointed look. "You must understand the stakes of our mission. While we have been asleep these ten thousand years, the castle has picked up distress beacons from all of these location."

A holographic map filled the room. It was nearly entirely full of red. Dread settled in Lance's stomach.

"We must assume that the Galra have conquered almost the entirety of the known universe," said Allura grimly. "And Earth is here- an attack on it is inevitable."

The paladins exchanged worried looks. They had known and expected it, but it was a lot worse to hear it from Allura as a certainty and not speculation.

"Our mission is to free all these planets," said Allura. "Coran and I have been preparing the castle to leave Arus. While we do so, I need you five to learn to form Voltron so we can begin fighting Zarkon."

Shiro nodded and looked over all of them. "The Princess is right. Let's get to our lions and start training."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Pidge. "I need to talk to those prisoners we rescued!"

"Ah, sorry, no can do, number five!" exclaimed Coran. "Ranked you by height- anyway, the prisoners need to remain in the cryo-replenishers until tomorrow so they can fully heal. Ah, those things are great! Why, I remember-"

"Coran is right," Allura cut in. "Get to your lions, paladins- ah, after you get into your armour."

"Roger that, princess," said Lance, giving her a salute. She scowled at him, and he just grinned back. Coran chuckled in amusement, and Lance ran out of the room to go put on his paladin armour. He then found his way to the control room, and Coran amusedly pointed him in the direction he needed to go.

"Right down that way," he said brightly. "Enjoy the zip-line!"

"A zip-line? Sweet," said Lance, running towards the doors the Altean had pointed out.

"Do not eat the zip-line!" Coran warned him.

Lance laughed. "I won't!"

He'd need to get all three Alteans (Alfor totally counted, even if he was actually dead and some sort of ghost-AI he was pretty cool) together and teach them Earth slang. It would probably be pretty funny.

There was in fact a zip-line, much to Lance's utter delight. In fact, the whole trip to Blue was fantastic, like a ride at an amusement park. Hunk probably hated it.

"Hey, Blue, babe," he greeted, and she purred and let him walk in and situated himself in the pilot seat. "Let's do this Voltron thing. You up for it?"

Her response seemed to be, _always, my paladin_.

He patted her dashboard. "Yeah, I figured as much. Let's fly."

Leaving the hangar was just as exhilarating as any other time he spent flying. He turned on his comms as he flew out to join the other lions.

"Hey, guys," he said, "where's Hunk?"

There was a brief silence from the others.

"Should one of us go in after him…?" Lance suggested. Hunk really didn't care for rollercoasters. Or zip-lines. And the way to the hangar has somewhat included both, in a way. Maybe Lance should go in after him, just to make sure-

The Yellow Lion shot out of its hangar and joined them in the sky. Lance breathed a sigh of relief that his friend wasn't puking up food goo in the hangar.

"Sorry, sorry, everyone," Hunk said. "Seriously, we should park these guys a bit closer to the bridge. Whew. Wow."

"Alright, team," said Shiro, "let's just fly in tight formation until we're in sync. Remember your position!"

Lance remember his- right flank with Keith, because he was the right leg, because he and Blue were awesome.

Allura's voice filtered over the comms: "Remember to feel the bond with your lions and fellow paladins until five become one and Voltron is formed!"

Lance had no issues feeling the bond with Blue. Her presence was like the waves of the ocean, familiar, warm, constant, relaxing.

Home.

Blue's purr rose and he smiled.

The team shot off, flying forward in formation.

"YEAH!" they all yelled excitedly.

They flipped and started flying the other way with another, "YEAH!"

After a couple more flips and different directions, Lance was getting rather bored and nothing was happening. All of their enthusiasm was fading, even Shiro's.

"Yay," Hunk said despondently. There was a pause. "I'm the only one still pretending to be excited, aren't I?"

"This clearly isn't working," Shiro said. "Let's set down for a bit."

"What if we build Voltron from the ground up?" Keith suggested. "Like- literally build Voltron? Stack on top, legs, arms, head?"

"Like- like cheerleaders?" Lance suggested.

"Got any better ideas?" Keith shot back.

"Woah, dude, chill," said Lance.

"It's worth a shot," said Shiro.

So Lance and Blue ended up on the very bottom of the pile- and _where_ was Hunk?

"Hunk, what are you doing?" Shiro asked dryly.

"Huh- what?" said Hunk.

"You're supposed to be the other leg," Shiro said.

"What?" said Hunk in confusion. "No. No, I called the head. Last time we did, I'm pretty sure I was the head."

"You literally yelled 'I'm a leg!'," Lance said in disbelief.

"I was yelling a whole lot of things," said Hunk.

" _Shiro_ is the head," said Keith.

"Aw, always?" said Hunk in disappointment.

"Let's try it this way, Hunk," said Shiro gently.

"Alright, but next time I wanna be the head," said Hunk. The Yellow Lion flew and landed beside Lance, and Green landed on top of it.

"Arms and legs," said Shiro slowly. "And I'll form the head… feel the bonds with your lions. Channel all your energy into forming Voltron. Focus. Focus…"

Lance was definitely focusing, trying to find the other lions' presences. If he focused hard enough, he could start to make out Red's bonfire or Yellow's steady mountains or Green's forests or Black's fierce winds- but the moment he was distracted by anything it was gone, only Blue's ocean left.

"Is everyone bonding and focusing?" Shiro prompted.

"Ugh!" Lance groaned. "Why was this so much easier before?"

Blue sent him a hopeful image of flying in formation again. He sent back an apologetic emotional equivalent to, yeah, that's not gonna work. Maybe it had for the old paladins- maybe they hadn't had trouble forming Voltron ever, but this Team Voltron wasn't quite as good.

Blue was quick to declare mentally that Lance and her former paladin were both equally wonderful, and Lance chuckled and patted her dashboard as she teasingly suggested that maybe _the_ other paladins needed work but they didn't.

Shiro sighed. "Alright, paladins. Let's take a break-"

And then the castle promptly started shooting at them.

Fantastic.

 **A/N: Another chapter! Lance met Alfor- I really wanted them to meet, but I really wasn't sure if I'd actually go through with it until I started writing this chapter. I think it'd be nice for AI!Alfor too, to have someone to talk to who wasn't looking to him while hurting or for guidance. I dunno, maybe it's weird. I liked it! XDD**

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Love you all! 3**


	10. Some Assembly Required: Part Two

They did not end up forming Voltron.

Instead, the particle barrier went down, and one after another everyone just kind of quit. Hunk was the first to go, complaining about grabbing some food goo. Pidge followed shortly, deeming the exercises both boring and useless and he had some actual important work to do. Lance didn't much want to quit, but by that point even Blue was kind of exhausted and dejected, so he gave up too.

"It's no use," grumbled Keith from his spot on the couch-like thing that Lance was just going to call a couch. "At this rate, we'll _never_ form Voltron."

Shiro gave Keith a disapproving look. "We have to keep trying. The universe depends on us."

"The universe should pin its hopes on people who can vote," grumbled Lance.

"I can vote," said Keith.

"You would vote Bigfoot or something, you don't count," Lance said, waving a hand.

Keith gave him an indignant pout. "I would not. Bigfoot would make a terrible president."

"But you don't deny that you would vote some conspiracy-cryptid," Lance shot back.

Keith opened his mouth to argue, then must have realised he couldn't, because he scowled and muttered, "No."

"Lance is kind of right, Shiro is like the only responsible adult here," Hunk said.

They all glanced at Shiro, who had gave them a deer-in-the-headlights wide-eyed stare.

"Um," he said.

"He's right," said Keith solemnly, even though Shiro hadn't said anything. "Shiro can't even make ramen, there are no responsible adults here."

"Betrayal," muttered Shiro.

"How are we ever going to defeat a ten-thousand-year-old megalomaniac with basically five kids?" Hunk despaired, throwing his hands up in defeat. "We're complete disasters at this! We can't even make the super space robot guy out of our lions!"

"Come on, Hunk, it's like our second day on the job," Lance encouraged. "We'll get the hang of it eventually. Remember our second day on the job at our first job ever- that coffee shop-"

Hunk perked up. "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. We're doing much better than we did there."

"How could you possibly do worse than we've done today?" asked Pidge dubiously, narrowing his eyes at them.

Hunk and Lance exchanged looks. Lance momentarily flashed back to the old coffee shop, complete with hot coffee spewing out of almost all the machines and whip cream _everywhere_ -

"We don't talk about the Coffee Shop Incident," said Lance primly. Hunk nodded solemnly, shuddering in remembrance of the horrors of that day.

The smaller boy glared at both of them suspiciously. "I will find out."

"You don't wanna find out, little dude," Hunk said, giving him a wide-eyed look. "You don't wanna."

"We should probably get out there again before Princess Allura finds us," Shiro said uneasily. The rest of them gave him incredulous looks. Lance was pleased to see that even Keith didn't want to leave the comfortable living room area. Shiro nodded as if to confirm his idea to himself. "I'll see you out there."

They watched as he left the room. Keith glanced to the rest of them. "Are we going to-"

"No," Lance, Hunk, and Pidge chorused. Lance flopped over on his couch and laid down, making himself as comfortable as he would have been at home. Being a defender of the universe- which had actually been his childhood dream, come to think of it- was turning out to be a lot harder than he'd originally thought.

Keith crossed his arms broodily but didn't seem inclined to disagree or go after Shiro. The guy would probably realise in a few minutes they hadn't followed and come back to yell at them, but he seemed pretty cool so far, so the yelling would be minimal at most.

And then in walked Allura and Coran, and Lance was pretty sure Allura wouldn't keep _her_ yelling to a minimum.

"Are we at full power on condenser number five?" she was asking Coran.

He grimaced at the little device he was holding. "Still only eighty-four percent, I'm afraid."

Allura scowled, but then she caught sight of them and her face lit up- not the reaction Lance had been expecting, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

"You did it!" she exclaimed. "You formed Voltron!"

"No," said Keith sullenly. "The shooting stopped and the barrier shut down, so we just flew in."

Allura's face fell back into a scowl. " _What_?"

Oh, boy, now she was going to yell.

"Oh, right," said Coran. "Sorry, Princess, I had to turn off the defences to test the fire suppressors. Very important, fire safety."

"Very important," Lance concurred, nodding and thinking back with a mental wince to how his parents were fairly connived his birth parents had died in some sort of fire. "Good decisions on Coran's part, really."

Allura looked thoroughly unamused.

Shiro chose this moment to power-walk back into the room. He caught sight of Allura, floundered for a split second in panic, then put on his best disappointed dad face. It was a very good disappointed dad face, too.

"What are you four doing?" he demanded. "We're not taking a break."

Oh, so now he was going to pretend he had nothing to do with them. Typical.

"Shiro is right," said Allura. "You should be training."

"We've been training," Hunk complained. "When can we go home?"

Pidge shot up. "I'm not going back until I find my family!"

"Sorry, but, like, my family is on Earth?" said Hunk awkwardly.

"There won't be an Earth if we can't fight and defeat Zarkon," Shiro said almost disapprovingly.

"How? How are we going to do that?" Lance bit out. "We can't even figure out Voltron!"

Coran smiled sadly. "It isn't surprising. The paladins of old had been friends long before Voltron, and fought hundreds of battles together. They were like a pack of yalmors linked at the ears!"

Lance sighed and slumped back in defeat. "Yeah, well. That's definitely not us."

"During the last attack, your survival instincts forced you to work as a team," said Coran. "But that will only get you so far. You'll need to learn to work as a real team to have any chance of forming Voltron and defeating Zarkon. Perhaps you should try the training deck."

"Wait," said Hunk hesitantly. "There's a training deck?"

* * *

Coran led them to the training deck, explaining jovially along the way about he had been able to use it in his youth due to his friendship with Alfor. He continued to explain that the paladins of old spent many days training on the very deck they'd be using.

Lance wondered if he could convince either Coran or Alfor to give him cheats to use on the training deck or something. It wasn't actually cheating. It would just be using his _network_ to his advantage. Work smarter not harder, right?

"Alright!" exclaimed Coran as the paladins clustered together in the centre of the deck. "The paladin code demands that you put your team members' safety above your own! A swarm of drones is about to attack, and each of you need to do everything you can to protect the others."

That didn't seem too difficult. Lance could protect his teammates, no problem. He held up his arm and a shield appeared, which was definitely a good thing. Beside him, Hunk did the same and yelped in alarm.

"What the- does everyone have one of these?" he asked, looking around nervously.

"Don't worry, buddy, I got your back," Lance assured him.

"That's good," said Hunk. "I'm not even sure I've got my own back."

And then the drones actually started attacking them. Hunk nearly screamed and ducked, leaving poor Pidge's back open. Hunk made a noise that sounded kind of like an apology as he stood back up.

"Protect your teammates or they won't be able to protect you!" Coran warned.

It _definitely_ sounded a lot easier than it was. Lance, Keith, and Shiro formed a tight triangle as Hunk (rather majestically in Lance's somewhat biased opinion) dived into the floor, which had opened up beneath him somehow. Pidge, too, had disappeared, which must have meant that whenever you were hit, the ground would open up and swallow you.

You know, to save you from the embarrassment.

"Alright, paladins, increasing intensity!" declared Coran.

The drones sped up their shooting. Lance, Shiro, and Keith continuously moved their shields to block the shots- they made a pretty good team, if you asked Lance.

"Keeping up alright, Keith?" Lance needled, shooting Keith a grin as he blocked a shot.

Keith made a noise of irritation. "Just concentrate on keeping me safe."

"Me? No problem, I'm the _boss_ of this drill!" he shot back.

The drones dropped to the floor and continued shooting. Momentarily distracted, Lance moved his foot to avoid a shot and ended up letting Keith get hit instead, leaving him with only Shiro.

Lance was the next one to be hit, but he was silently proud that'd he'd at least managed to protect Shiro. He fell through the floor to where the other paladins were. Hunk was groaning and rubbing his head.

"That was not fun," he moaned.

"Same, bro, same," Lance muttered.

Shiro fell through the floor. Keith and Lance exchanged looks, shook their heads, and moved out of the way, letting their leader hit the ground like the rest of them had instead of giving him the cushion of themselves.

Shiro gave Keith a betrayed look, then turned to Lance with the same expression. He looked kind of like a puppy who'd been kicked, or maybe his nephew when Ricky was denied candy.

"You're much larger than both of us and like, all muscle," Keith shrugged.

Lance nodded. "Don't give us the sad puppy face!"

"What? Shiro can do the sad puppy face?" Hunk exclaimed, crawling over to observe. The sad puppy face quickly vanished to be replaced by confusion, but Hunk had seen enough to be impressed. "Wow. Wow, he's as good as Ricky."

"I know, right?" said Lance. He gave Shiro a sceptical look. "Are you secretly a six-year-old?"

"Wha- no," said Shiro, putting on his disapproving dad face again.

"Yes," said Keith with a triumphant grin, the grin that a brother might give before revealing something supremely embarrassing about their older sibling (Lance had that look down to a science, he was the youngest sibling and had _plenty_ to reveal). "He's a leap-"

Shiro gave him the dirtiest glare Lance had ever seen. Keith shut his mouth.

The damage had been done.

"Wait, really?" Pidge exclaimed, leaning forward on his hands. He looked ready to ask a million questions, even though Lance wasn't completely sure what he needed to know about being a leap year baby.

"No way, dude!" Hunk laughed.

Coran chose this moment to walk in. "Alright, paladins! Time for the next training sequence!"

They exchanged looks.

"Shiro's only six and I have to babysit so I should sit out," Lance volunteered before anyone else had the chance to take the glorious opportunity that had been afforded to them.

"Six? Six what?" asked Coran, before his eyes widened in horror. "Goodness, only six deca-phoebs, you mean? I assumed Earth children would look more like Altean children!"

"No, I'll babysit Shiro," Keith cut in.

"Ha! You'd make a terrible babysitter, Mullet," Lance scoffed.

"Who would trust _you_ with kids?"

"Excuse you, my brother and sister trust me with their kids all the time!"

"I am _not_ only six," Shiro gritted out, standing and brushing off his pants. "I am a full-grown adult, unlike my _teammates_ here."

Lance and Keith might have continued arguing, but at Shiro's glare they made a silent pact of brotherhood and both grinned innocently at the leader.

"Well, that's a relief," said Coran, still eying Shiro worriedly. "The next activity is a partner maze!"

Shiro smiled rather evilly. "Wonderful. Lance and Keith can go first."

Lance turned to glare at Keith.

 _This is your fault_ , he tried to tell him silently.

Keith seemed to silently respond, _screw you_.

Lance was very offended.

 **A/N: Sorry this one took so long, guys!**

 **I kind of let it carry me away... I enjoy writing the team's interactions, so this chapter was a lot of that. I hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading, and for all the favourites and reviews and follows! I love you guys so much! 3**


	11. Some Assembly Required: Part Three

Lance wasn't so sure about this partner maze, but he figured he and Keith would totally win if it was a competition, and if it was a competition _between_ him and Keith, Lance would obviously win. He was good at mazes as a kid- this would be a breeze.

He didn't _see_ the maze yet, but he figured it would appear in a moment.

"To form Voltron, you need to trust each other!" Coran declared. "This paladin maze will teach you that trust. Your teammate can see the walls, but you can't. If you touch the walls, you'll get a slight shock, so listen carefully!"

"Aw, man, _Keith_ 's guiding me?" Lance lamented. "Why does he get to be on the one on the mic?"

"Two steps forward," Keith said.

"Two steps forward," Lance grumbled mockingly. He did so anyway. No shock. That was good.

"Okay, turn right, and take three steps in that direction," Keith said.

Lance walked right into the wall and fell backwards as electricity sparked out at him.

"Keith!" he squawked indignantly.

"My right," Keith clarified. "Go to my right."

So Lance did- right into _another_ wall.

"We're switching places!" he demanded loudly. "Now you're doing it on purpose!"

"You're taking too big of steps!" Keith shot back. "Move a small step back and then go right- my right!"

"Stupid mullet," Lance grumbled. He followed the directions. This time he wasn't shocked- thankfully. The old paladins probably didn't have this much trouble. They probably had the maze figured out within seconds.

"Okay, keep going forward about five steps- five normal steps, not those weird long steps you do," said Keith.

Lance scowled up at him and took five steps forward. He surprisingly wasn't shocked this time, either.

"Now turn to my left and go ten normal steps forward, and then turn right and keep going five more steps," Keith said. "After that, left again and take eight steps."

It continued like this for a little bit. Lance only got shocked a couple more times before he made it out of the maze, but by then, he was so done with the training exercises. He had hoped he'd get a chance to boss Keith around, but Coran decided the other paladins deserved a chance to test out the maze first. It was pretty funny to watch, actually. Hunk tried to make himself as small as possible, and Pidge was so small he would always be like two steps short of where he needed to be based on Hunk's reckoning. Shiro experimentally poked at the wall while he was waiting for Pidge's instructions, seemingly unhurt but almost amused by the shocks.

"He's always been weird," Keith had muttered to Lance in explanation.

The next exercise, they would be working with their lions. _That_ was something Lance was sure he could manage. He and Blue worked super well together, and she welcomed him as he walked into her cockpit with a warm purr.

Coran's face appeared on a little holographic screen on his dashboard, smiling brightly. "You can't form Voltron if you don't have a strong bond with your lion."

"Ha! No problem, man," said Lance. "Me and Blue are tight. We're like day and night, black and white, peanut butter and jelly-"

"You can have peanut butter without jelly and vice versa," Pidge informed him.

"You get what I mean," Lance scoffed.

"Well, good," said Coran. "Then you'll do well. This is an expert-level drill that you really shouldn't try for several more years. Last time a new pilot tried it- well, it ended badly. Anyway, we're in a rush, so we're going for it anyway! Put your lions in a nosedive!"

That didn't sound too bad to Lance.

"Let's do this, Blue," he said.

"And activating training helmets," Coran added.

The entire world went dark. Hunk nearly screamed.

"Coran, what the quiznak? I can't see!" Lance yelped.

"Exactly! You have to learn to see through your lion's eyes and pull up right before you hit the ground," said Coran happily.

"Oh, no," whimpered Hunk.

"Alright, Blue, babe, show me what you've got," Lance murmured, closing his eyes and trying to find some sort of supernatural- there! He pulled on the bond he figured he'd found between him and Blue, and suddenly the world in front of him lit up as if he were the one plummeting to the ground. He let out an exhilarated laugh.

"This is the coolest!" he crowed.

"Excellent, Lance!" Coran exclaimed proudly.

"Keith, you still going?" Lance challenged.

"You bet I am," he said. "You?"

"Ha! I'm speeding up!" Lance declared. He did indeed increase the speed- something that certainly didn't upset Blue in the slightest. The ground was rapidly approaching, and if he glanced over he could see Red next to him. "Getting scared?"

"Never!" Keith exclaimed.

Lance yanked back on his controls and Blue pulled out of the nosedive, shooting triumphantly back into the air. Lance whooped triumphantly, especially when Keith crashed into the planet's ground with a loud string of curse words Lance hadn't thought him capable of.

Blue sent him warm feelings of pride, and he let himself bask in it for a moment. He tried to send her back thanks and love, and he figured she got it.

In both of their distraction, they crashed into a cliff side.

"Shiro and Lance, good work pulling out of the nosedive," Coran exclaimed. "Lance, you have to _keep_ paying attention at all times. Keith, you were too over confident. Hunk, you didn't even get close to the ground! Pidge, I think you got distracted last minute, which left you to crash as well."

Despite their small crash and the bit of criticism, Lance was on cloud nine. _He_ had done better than _Keith_! That was an accomplishment, right there. Blue sent him her pride again, along with a distinct feeling that translated basically to, "My paladin is way better than Red's paladin."

Lance really loved Blue. She was the best.

"We only have a couple more exercises today," said Coran. "Just land your lion and meet me back in the castle!"

Oh, joy. More exercises. Lance was so excited.

* * *

The latest exercise had them putting on weird headset things. Lance fidgeted with his for a moment until it sat comfortably.

"This exercise is very important," said Coran. "You need to be able to clear your minds and focus on Voltron. Everything else must fade away."

Lance tuned Coran out. The first thing that came to the forefront of his mind was his family, but that flickered and turned into the blur of memories of his childhood that the castle seemed to be dredging up lately. Lance tried to push it out of his mind and focus on Blue, even if she, too, brought feelings of a past he didn't remember, couldn't remember-

Finally, he was able to focus on Blue, on her comfort and her oceans and her love for him and those she knew before him, and channel that into focusing now on Voltron. He could feel the others doing the same. Keith's desert shack glitched into the Red Lion. Hunk's array of delicious looking food, the images of his parents and siblings, faded into Yellow. Shiro's vision of Galra prisons and terror flipped into his family on earth and then to the paladins and finally to Black. Pidge's thoughts or what must have been his girlfriend, and maybe his family-

Pidge's thoughts didn't move.

"Pidge, quit thinking about your girlfriend!" Keith snapped.

"I- I'm not!" he protested. "Hunk's rooting around in my head!"

"Wha? I thought we were open?" Hunk complained. "You can look in my head hole, I think I've got a pretty nice head hole, pretty homey."

"Everyone should be able to look into everyone else's head holes," said Coran. "Clear your minds!"

Finally Pidge's thoughts cleared into Green.

"Now, form Voltron," said Coran.

They came so close- they almost had it- then the original image popped back into Pidge's memories. Pidge shot up, angrily throwing off his headset and throwing it to the ground.

"Hey, Pidge!" Lance exclaimed.

"I'm done!" he seethed. "I don't like all of you looking around in my head. It's my thoughts, not yours, so _butt_ _out_!"

"Pidge, we're getting the hang of this," said Shiro softly.

"I- I'm tired, alright," Pidge said, brow furrowed as he looked away.

"Okay," said Shiro, "alright. A break, then."

"You have been working hard," Coran agreed. "Maybe a bit of a break would do you good."

Lance offered him a grateful smile. The man looked surprised and smiled back hesitantly; he was giving Lance a really odd look. Lance wondered if maybe he'd seen something weird in his memories, or maybe if the alarms Lance remembered, presumably from a smoke alarm, reminded Coran of the fall of Altea.

He hoped not. Coran was really nice, and Lance didn't want to make him feel bad.

Just as they were beginning to relax, Allura stormed in, eyes furious. Lance mentally groaned and wondered if he could complain to Alfor at some point and Alfor would tell her to chill out some.

He'd maybe use different wording, though.

"What are you all doing lying around?" she demanded. "You're supposed to be training!"

"They're resting," said Coran. "You can't push too hard. They are only-"

"Can't push too hard?" she growled. "This is war, I must push hard. Get up. Get up! It's time you face the gladiator."

The look on Coran's face told Lance that this was not going to be good.

* * *

It was even worse than Lance had expected. A single robot managed to kick all of their butts in less than ten minutes. Allura had raved at them about the level being fit for an Altean child- paladins of Voltron should have easily been able to subdue it.

Lance was one hundred percent ready for dinner. It was food goo again, but it looked a bit like fancier food goo, which Lance supposed was nice. Variety was always a good thing.

"It's great focusing food," Coran informed them. "With this meal, you'll be forming Voltron six times a movement and twice on the astral conflux!"

"It smells great, Coran," said Shiro. "Thanks."

 _Great_ was a bit of an overstatement, but it smelled a bit better than the normal food goo, so Lance wasn't complaining too much. Just as he was going to eat it, glowing handcuffs appeared on his wrists, and suddenly he was shackled to both Hunk and Keith.

"Hey! Hold the phone!" he protested.

"I saw a lot of good, solid individual performances out there," Coran said, "but you haven't been working as a team. So, this is the final exercise of the day."

"Coran, no, man, think of what you're doing," Hunk lamented.

"This one's great," he said, with a grin that said it would be great for him but not so great for them. "You can feed each other like a pack of yalmors!"

"What's with the yalmors?" Lance grumbled. "Glad I'm not one."

It went- badly. Hunk yanked on Lance's arm to get at the food, pulling Keith into Lance's food. Lance glared at him in annoyance. "You defiled my food goo!"

"It's your fault!" Keith shot back.

"Agh, this is ridiculous!" complained Pidge.

"Can't you just give us a break?" Shiro asked, apparently finally fed-up with the princess. "Everyone has been working hard all day."

"Yeah," Keith said. "we're not a bunch of prisoners for you to toy with like- like-"

"Like a bunch of _toy prisoners_!" Lance supplemented.

"Exactly!" Keith exclaimed. "Thank you, Lance!"

"Hey! No yelling at the Princess!" exclaimed Coran.

Pidge huffed. "The princess of _what_? We're the only ones out here, and she's no princess of ours!"

Lance winced. That was kind of a low blow, and he even thought he saw hurt flash across Allura's eyes before she lowered them.

Then, the princess did something Lance was _not_ expected.

Using her spoon as a catapult, she chucked a big blob of food goo right at Pidge. Pidge blinked in shock as if dripped down his face.

"Oh, it is _on_ ," Pidge said, narrowing his eyes threateningly.

Then, it was a free-for-all. Together, the Paladins gathered up spoon- and handfuls of food goo to chuck and Coran and Allura, who retaliated in turn. Hunk sucked a bunch of goo into his mouth, then shot mouthfuls at the Alteans. Lance and Keith managed to team up to send a full plate at them, laughing the whole time.

Lance hadn't had this much fun since he'd been at home with his family.

"Enough!" Allura suddenly shouted.

Uh-oh. Here came the scolding.

"Can't you see what you're doing?" she demanded. They exchanged uneasy looks, but then her face broke into a smile. "You're working as a team!"

"Ha- she's- she's right!" Keith said in shocked glee.

"I don't even hate you right now," Lance mused with a grin.

"You guys thinking what I am?" said Hunk.

"Let's go form Voltron!" Shiro exclaimed.

"Yeah!" Lance, Pidge, and Keith echoed.

"No- no, I meant dessert but- alright, yeah, Voltron!" said Hunk.

Lance was beginning to think that maybe- just maybe- they could actually do this whole defenders of the universe thing, after all.

 **A/N: Hey guys, I know it's been a while! College orientation has been exhausting, we've been doing stuff like all day every day, so I haven't had much time to write. Maybe I will start having a tad more time, between homework and stuff XD.**

 **I hope you guys like this chapter! More team bonding, which, of course, was all this episode really was, with just the teensiest bit of angst in there! Thanks so much for reading! Love you guys! 3**


	12. Return of the Gladiator: Part One

"-and then Hunk did a perfect dive into the floor, would have gotten him the gold medal at the Olympics-"

"What are the _Ol-imp-icks_?"

"Oh, sorry, man, it's a human thing, they have all sorts of competitions, diving is one of them."

"Ah, I see."

"Yeah, so that left me and Keith and Shiro, but I accidentally dodged," Lance rubbed the back of his head. "I didn't expect them to drop to the floor like they did."

"I was not much better my first time in that training simulation," Alfor said kindly. "In fact, I daresay you did much better than I."

"Yeah, okay, but you were probably like five," Lance said.

"I was nineteen deca-phoebs old," said Alfor amusedly. "I was not a warrior in my youth."

Lance wasn't entirely sure why he'd snuck back into the AI room that night, besides that he'd enjoyed talking to Alfor. He'd given the Altean king a play-by-play of what they had done that day, eager for advice and just someone to talk to. The man was actually really cool- much easier to talk to than his daughter. Alfor seemed glad enough to have someone to talk to as well.

"Well," said Lance brightly, continuing his story, "Shiro was the last out, and then we found out he's a leap year baby, which means he's only had six birthdays-"

"Fascinating," said Alfor. "We did not have such a thing on Altea."

"Yeah, well, then we had to do this maze that zapped me every time I ran into a wall, so, like, a lot, because Keith is lousy at giving directions," said Lance.

Alfor chuckled almost sheepishly. "It was not originally meant to zap you, as you say, but it does add a good incentive, if you think about it."

"It was funny watching the others do it," Lance conceded. "Then we did some sort of mind-joining thingy, but Pidge couldn't quit thinking of his girlfriend. I- I think I might have alarmed Coran, though, because I think I briefly remembered fire alarms from my youth, and it may have reminded him of- well- you know-"

Alfor nodded. "I cannot say. Coran will not let it get to him, though, you needn't worry."

Lance shrugged. "Yeah, well, I felt bad. Anyway, then we faced the Gladiator-"

Alfor actually winced. Lance figured that meant he wasn't the only one that had had trouble with the robot- it was actually comforting to think this legendary King Alfor (who, up close and in person, didn't seem so legendary) could have gotten his butt kicked as bad as they had.

"And how did that go?" he asked warily.

"Miserably," Lance admitted. "Allura said it was set at a level fit for an Altean kid- some level like four or five, I think we should have started at one, but, you know Allura. She wants us to be ready to fight."

"Don't be discouraged," said Alfor. "At your age, I certainly hadn't made it past level five. As I said, I was not a warrior in my youth. Allura- she got her skill from her mother I daresay."

Lance laughed. "Papa says that about my siblings all the time, that they got their violence from Mama."

"Not you?" said Alfor curiously.

"Oh, well, I'm adopted," Lance admitted, kind of awkwardly. Did Alteans even have such thing as adoption? Would Alfor find that totally weird? "So, no, not me."

Alfor nodded grimly. "Then I am sorry about your birth parents, child."

Okay, so they did understand the concept of adoption.

Lance shrugged and shook his head. "I never really knew them. We assumed they died when I was really little. Mama and Papa raised me like their own."

They were both silent a moment. Lance glanced around at the recreation of what might have been Altea, back in the day, with beautiful pink flowers all around. It was peaceful, and nice, and Lance felt he may have liked the place a lot. It almost reminded him of home, even if the flowers didn't look quite like any Earth plants he'd seen and the sky was the wrong shade of blue.

"Hey, uh, Alfor?" Lance said hesitantly. The man raised an eyebrow, inclining his head for Lance to continue. "Were you- were you ever a paladin?"

Alfor looked mildly surprised at the question. "Yes, I was. The red paladin, in fact. But my team and I had been working together long before any of us had any notion of Voltron. And believe me, even then forming Voltron after our first fight took time. I- had a dispute. With the black paladin. It made things difficult for a time. We eventually made amends."

Lance blinked at him. "Coran said you were reckless and almost never knew what you were doing. I mean, he said that about the red paladin, but that was you. And Allura kind of implied you were temperamental."

Alfor scowled good-naturedly. "Yes, Coran would say that about me."

Then he paused.

"Temperamental?" he said in disbelief.

Lance chuckled. "Well, I mean, she was describing the traits of the Red Lion, but…"

"She is her mother's daughter," Alfor grumbled.

Lance laughed again and leaned back on his hands. "I really hope we can live up to you guys' legacy. So far-"

"You are a newly formed team," said Alfor. "It will take time for you to learn to trust each other as I trusted my teammates. Very rarely does a team work perfectly together from the start, or even to the end."

"Yeah," said Lance after a moment. "We'll just have to figure it out as we go."

"You will, in time," Alfor assured him.

"Well, according to Allura, we don't have time," Lance said mulishly.

Alfor sighed and shook his head. "Perhaps I will need to speak to my daughter. You are children- she is a child- none of you should be pushed this hard."

"Hey, I'm seventeen!" Lance protested.

"And when I was seventeen, I was a fairly inexperienced alchemist wreaking havoc with my closest friend Coran," Alfor said, lips twitching into a teasing smile. "I certainly wasn't preparing for war. I will talk to her."

Lance leaned forward curiously. "Tell me more about this _havoc."_

Alfor laughed. "Perhaps I should start with the time on the Unilu Swap Moon. That is certainly an exciting tale."

* * *

By the time Lance to back to his room, it was too late to get the amount of sleep he actually wanted. He didn't regret staying up and talking to Alfor; they had spent most of the night sharing stories. Lance figured when he got the chance he would try to ask Coran for some stories too. He and Alfor seemed to have had a very exciting youth.

The next morning came way too early- again- and started with more training. Lance, for one, was already super sick of training, even if he loved spending time with Blue. The others couldn't seem to appreciate their style. He bet that if his siblings saw the super cool kick he'd done out there, they would have loved it. But, _no,_ Keith said it ruined their balance.

For the record, it so totally wasn't Lance's fault they fell like they did.

"Hello, paladins!" greeted Coran jovially, walking into the room. "How was the Voltron workout?"

"We're getting it," said Shiro sheepishly. "What about you and Allura? Have you finished up with the castle so we can leave? We're sitting ducks out here on Arus."

Coran blinked at him. "Just about. Well, to get your minds off the _ducks_ you're sitting on, I made you an authentic ancient paladin lunch!"

Yeah, Lance really needed to teach him and Alfor (and maybe Allura, if he could convince Allura) Earth slang.

Coran whipped out several plates and put them on the table. Lance peered at it, nose crinkled up. It didn't even look edible- in fact, it looked kind of like it might still be alive.

"Old red paladin's favourite!" Coran chirped.

Lance made a face.

"Alfor actually ate that?" he muttered in mildly disgusted shock. Coran didn't appear to hear him.

"Come on, Coran, I was just getting used to the food goo," Hunk complained good-naturedly. He leaned forward and sniffed at the so-called paladin lunch. "It smells disgusting."

"That's how you know it's good for you," Coran said matter-of-factly.

Hunk gave a sigh and shook his head. "Ah, Coran, we're on a planet full of fresh herbs, spices, whatever this thing might be- I think it's some sort of tuber, may function kinda like a potato, we shall see- if you'll excuse me, I will head to the kitchen and make some proper food."

Coran blinked after him, then called, "You don't know what you're missing!"

"Where's Pidge?" asked Shiro, glancing around worriedly.

"Probably checking on those prisoners," said Coran. "They'll be waking soon- now! Why don't you try some paladin lunch? Open wide, here comes the food lion-"

Shiro leaned away as if he was going to go under a limbo stick as Coran brandished the spoon at him. "No- just- no."

He quickly dodged out of the room. Coran looked kind of disappointed.

"Coran, my man, _I'll_ try it," said Lance bravely. If Alfor liked it, it couldn't be too bad. When in Rome and all that. He scooped up a large spoonful and made a show of eating it.

Alfor, he decided, had terrible, terrible taste in food.

"S'really good," Lance managed through his mouthful. He forced it down and gave Coran a queasy smile. "Real- real filling, actually, I'll just- kinda thirsty now, okay, thanks, bye!"

"Glad you liked it Lance!" Coran exclaimed and Lance ran from the room.

Yeah, after that, he _definitely_ needed some water.

* * *

Hunk dragged him shortly after he ran off, proclaiming himself a culinary genius in a most Hunk-like way that he only would around Lance, and only jokingly at that. Lance knew his friend well enough to know that whatever he cooked up had to be good, so he followed him back to the table to see the most gorgeous array of alien food he'd ever seen in his life.

"Ah, _bon appetit_ ," Hunk said smugly as Lance and Keith dug in.

"Oh, they like the paladin lunch?" said Allura, sounding both delighted and highly doubtful at the same time.

"Lance did," Coran said mulishly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"I have finally gotten the last nebulon booster running!" Allura said excitedly. "We should be able to leave Arus tomorrow and finally take the fight to Zarkon."

Coran smiled kind of sadly and rested a hand on her shoulder. He looked ready to say something when the alarms on the castle shot off- not quite as violently as Lance remembered, but still surprising.

Wait.

The fire, Lance was remembering the fire- in some human building, on Earth.

The castle was getting to his head if it was tricking him into believing he was remembering its alarms instead of an Earth-style smoke alarm.

Allura's brow furrowed, and she turned to a dashboard and typed in several commands. A holographic screen popped out, showing a tiny alien approaching the castle.

"Aw, it's so cute," said Hunk before he could stop himself.

"What the hell is that?" said Keith.

Lance gave him an offended gasp. "Keith! _Language!"_

Keith gave him an utterly confused look.

"It may be a local Arusian," said Allura slowly. "He is approaching the castle."

"Aww," Hunk cooed again with the same starry-eyed grin he got when he saw Lance's nephew and niece.

"Maybe I could knit him a sweater," Lance mused, because the guy was pretty cute, and Ricky and Celia loved the little sweaters he made them. "He doesn't look dangerous at all."

"You never know," said Keith grimly.

"Alteans believe in peace first," said Allura. "We must go welcome them."

"So cute," murmured Hunk.

"I won't take any chances," said Keith, hand going to his bayard.

"Lighten up, Keith," Lance said. "He's half your size. If does end up a threat, you can take him out, no problem, but at least give the little guy the benefit of the doubt."

Keith scowled at him. "He could be a spy for the Galra. We're in a war, now, Lance. We can't afford the _benefit of the doubt_."

He stalked out of the room after Allura. Hunk patted Lance's shoulder.

"Dude needs a chill pill," he decided, lips twitching into a grin.

Lance laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, he does."

Nevertheless, he couldn't help worrying that Keith could be right.

 **A/N: Hey guys! More Alfor and Lance bonding in this chapter, which was fun! Poor Coran- no one likes his paladin lunch. Maybe he should take cooking lessons from Hunk. XDD**

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! I'm so super sorry for the long wait - life happened, college happened, etcetera. BUT you have like four more chapters coming at you pretty rapid fire, so hopefully that helps. Love you guys! 3**


	13. Return of the Gladiator: Part Two

The alien was even cuter in person. The little guy was hiding in the bushes when they exited the castle. Allura leant down towards the foliage.

"Greetings," she said amicably. "We know you're there. We won't hurt you."

The alien took this as permission to leap out of the bushes, tiny sword drawn. His glare might have been fierce if he was, like, four feet taller, but at the moment Lance just thought he looked like a stuffed animal.

"Aw," Hunk said, unknowingly (oh, who was Lance kidding? Hunk knew they shared this opinion) agreeing with Lance.

"Wait!" Keith yelped, sliding in front of them. Lance was torn between _aw, Keith wants to protect us_ and _how dare he, I can protect myself!_ in his head, but he eventually settled on scowling at the boy. "He could be dangerous. Drop your weapon!"

The alien looked scandalised. "No one may take Klaizap's weapon!"

"Keith," hissed Allura warningly, "put your sword away."

His frown deepened but he listened, which was probably good, because so far, Allura had proven a very scary woman.

"My apologies, kind sir, for my paladin's actions," she said.

The alien blinked. "I am Klaizap, bravest of our warriors. Our village is over Gazrel Hill – I come to inquire as to why the Lion Goddess is so angry with her followers."

Lance furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Followers?" repeated Coran, echoing Lance's confusion.

"Lion goddess?" added Hunk sceptically.

Klaizap held out a hand to a carving depicting and anthropomorphic (yes, Lance knew this word, everyone was always so surprised) lion deity – deitess? Was that a thing? – being worshipped by aliens that looked like Klaizap. "The one the ancients spoke of."

Lance and Hunk exchanged bemused looks.

 _I dunno what he's talking about_ , Hunk told him with a quirk of his eyebrows.

Lance subtly shook his head to indicate he, too, had no clue.

"What makes you believe she is angry?" asked Allura kindly.

"Destruction is everywhere!" declared Klaizap. "In only the past few suns, a giant has danced in the sky, raining fire from the heavens!"

All five paladins glanced at each other wearily.

 _Oops_ , Lance thought to himself.

"I think he's talking about Voltron," Hunk whispered to him. Hunk, of course, was as terrible at whispering as he was at sneaking around, so everyone heard him. Lance sighed.

"Yeah," he said, "got that."

"You have not angered the Lion Goddess," Allura assured the tiny (still adorable) alien.

"How can you know?" he asked.

Lance was about _this_ close to declaring, yep, yeah, _she's_ the Lion Goddess and starting a total _Road to El Dorado_ fake gods thing, but Hunk grabbed his arm disapprovingly, shooting him the I-know-what-you-want-to-do-and-it's-a-terrible-idea look he got rather often.

"Because I am Princess Allura of Altea," said Allura grandly, "and this is my castle."

Klaizap gasped and kneeled before her. "Lion Goddess!"

"Huh," Lance muttered to his friend. "I didn't even have to do anything."

"You're a terrible human being taking advantage of the natives," Hunk murmured back. Lance knew he didn't really mean that, of course, so he gave him his best grin.

"Please, bravest warrior," said Allura calmly, "bring us to your village so we may meet our neighbours."

In Lance's experience, meeting the neighbours was either really awkward (he was referring to _you_ , Davidsons next door) or really awesome (that would be meeting Hunk, easily one of the best days of Lance's short life). He hoped this would fall in the latter category.

Keith looked a bit put-out. "What about our mission to get off this planet and fight Zarkon?"

Lance wasn't entirely sure what Keith's problem was. He didn't have much personal reason to be so invested in this saving the universe thing (I mean, he supposed could go with _Guardians of the Galaxy_ and say it was because they were all some of the idiots who lived in it, but, honestly, Lance found that a bit tacky). Shiro had more reason than any of the rest of the humans – he was the one that'd been kidnapped and presumably tortured by the Galra.

"Part of Voltron's purpose is to spread peace and diplomacy," said Allura. "Arus has hosted us for ten thousand years. They at least deserve our thanks."

Klaizap had risen from his position in the dirt and was smiling up at them, which only made the alien more adorable.

"I can lead you to our village," he said.

"Thank you," said Allura.

As they began to follow the small alien, Lance fell into step behind Coran. Hunk, always loyally by his side, fell in line next to him.

"So did you ever visit Arus back in the day?" Lance asked curiously.

"Briefly, once, I believe," said Coran. "We didn't stick around long. Got into a spot of trouble. Ah, those were the days."

His expression turned sad and wistful. Lance mentally cursed himself for being so tactless. To Coran, he'd only lost everything a couple of days ago. Lance had to go dragging back memories, even if they weren't bad.

"There's lots of vegetation here," mused Hunk. "Hey, if we get time, I want to do a bit of scavenging so we have fresh stuff instead of the food goo."

"The food goo is nutritional!" protested Coran. Lance sent a silent thank you to his best friend for changing the subject so smoothly.

"My dude, after that lunch you made today, I will definitely help you with scavenging so you can cook for us," said Lance.

"So, first, please don't ever refer to me as your dude ever again," said Hunk.

"Why not?" said Lance. "My dude, my man, _mi_ _hermanito_ –"

"Um, excuse you, I am both older and larger than you," said Hunk, "so, if anything, you're my _hermanito_."

"Sorry, what's a dude and an er-man-ee-toe?" asked Coran.

Lance snorted. "Oh, man, we have got to work on your accent."

"That – that really was sad," agreed Hunk.

"A dude is a guy," said Lance. "A person. Like Hunk. He's a dude, I'm a dude, you're a dude – we're all dudes, except Allura."

"Yeah, she's a dudette," said Hunk.

"Please don't," said Lance.

Hunk threw up his hands. "You started it."

"Well, I'm also ending it, please don't call Allura a dudette," Lance said. "Anyway, _hermanito_ is Spanish for little brother."

"Lance is Cuban," Hunk added helpfully.

Coran blinked at us. "Spanish? Cuban? Aren't you all from the same planet?"

"Yeah, we just have lots of different countries and languages," said Hunk. "Like, my family is Samoan, in Samoa they speak Samoan and also English – Lance is from Cuba, so he's Cuban – they speak Spanish. I learned some Spanish in school. Also from Lance."

Coran looked befuddled. "Altea only had but one language. Now, we learned others in school. I personally took courses in Nalquodian and, well, Galran, before the Galra were evil. And let me tell you – Nalquodian, that is a language to learn! Difficult, yes, but certainly beautiful in its own right. Now, Galran – well, that's just plain difficult."

"Oh-ho, do not get me started on difficult languages," Lance said. "English? English is _murder_. Flat-out _murder_. It's anarchy. Other languages have rules."

"English has rules," said Hunk.

"Rules with more exceptions than instances where they're actually followed," Lance exclaimed.

Coran shook his heads. "You humans are so baffling!"

"Yeah," Lance had to agree, "yeah, we really are."

The walk to the alien village wasn't all that far – Lance, as much as he enjoyed chatting with Coran, was rather glad they didn't have to walk too far. It wasn't that he wasn't in shape of anything – Lance took good care of his body as well as his skin. He just didn't really want to walk crazy far for this meet-the-neighbours thing.

The little Arusians were super excited to see them. Lance totally took it in stride, showing off for the little guys until Hunk gave him a scolding glare and he quickly mellowed his behaviour.

An older-looking (although Lance really couldn't tell the ages of these guys) Arusian stepped forward toward them, arms spread wide. "Oh, Lion Goddess! As King of the Arusians, I formally beg your forgiveness. Please have mercy on us and accept our traditional Dance of Apology as atonement for our sins."

Allura looked utterly confused as the King clapped twice and another Arusian rushed forward.

"Commence Dance of Apology," he ordered.

The Arusian began some sort of dance-thing. The poor Princess looked highly uncomfortable.

"Please, please," she said, "there is no need for this."

The Arusians looked alarmed.

"Moontow, stop!" said the King sharply. "The Goddess refuses the apology. Light the sacrificial fire! We must throw ourselves in."

"No!" Lance and Hunk yelped with Allura. Coran had to put a firm hand on his shoulder to stop him from rushing forward – Lance wasn't sure what he would have done, probably gathered as many of the tiny aliens into his arms as possible to prevent them from running into the fire that had indeed been lit.

"No sacrifices," said Allura carefully.

The King looked hopeful. "So we may proceed with the dance?"

"That's – that's a much better alternative," she agreed.

The King clapped and the Arusian started dancing again. It wasn't anything like the dancing Lance was used to. His family was kind of huge on dancing – not necessarily professional, though his sister Leida was actually planning to major in Dance in college. He was used to fast-paced music, small children stepping on his toes, siblings and parents and aunts and uncles clapping and singing to the music. This was a lot slower and simpler – not bad, just culturally different. Lance was biased to prefer what he knew – but he did.

At the end of the dance, all the Arusians bowed. Allura looked simultaneously mortified and flattered.

"Just like her father," Coran murmured to him.

Lance could see that. Alfor never seemed the type to get all uppity about titles and bowing and that nonsense.

"Please, rise!" said Allura. "Thank you for your… lovely dance, but I am not a great goddess worthy of your worship."

"Aw," Lance muttered quietly. "She ruined it."

Hunk elbowed him.

"I accidentally put you all in danger," admitted Allura. "It is I who should be apologising to you. I am Princess Allura of Altea, and these are some of the Paladins of Voltron. Though we come from different worlds – and have very, very, _very_ different traditions… we wish to live alongside you as friends."

Keith scowled and looked about to bring up the whole Zarkon fight again. Hunk elbowed him too, which garnered a dumbfounded stare from the Red Paladin. Lance hid a chuckle; Keith would get used to it eventually.

"The mighty robotic angel," said the King, "has it not come to destroy us for our immoral ways?"

Lance's eyebrows raised; he had a _lot_ of question about what exactly these immoral ways could be.

"What? No!" said Allura, clearly scandalised. "Voltron – the mighty robotic angel – is here to protect you! Let it be known that Voltron will protect every innocent being throughout the universe."

The Arusians all cheered. Lance thought that it was a rather tall order, to protect _every_ innocent being in the universe. It was a beautiful idea, one he'd love to achieve, but it didn't exactly seem feasible.

Coran seemed to notice his wavering smile, because he patted him on the shoulder.

"I expect you'll do a fine job, my boy," he said quietly.

"Heh, thanks, Coran," Lance said.

He smiled. "Of course, Lance. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go mingle! These Arusians are so fascinating!"

"Alright, man, you do that," Lance laughed.

The rest of them spread out. Lance caught sight of one Arusian hugging Keith and stifled a laugh – Hunk was _possibly_ going to take that as permission to surprise-hug Keith whenever he wanted if he saw that, so Lance decided to go make sure he did see that.

He pushed his worries out of his mind – now wasn't the time to be doubting his abilities as a Paladin. It was too soon to know, anyway.

 **A/N:** **I kind of let it carry me away... I enjoy writing the team's interactions, so this chapter was a lot of that. I hope you guys enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading! I love you guys so much! 3**


	14. The Return of the Gladiator: Part Three

Things seemed to be going really well. The Arusians were super friendly and it was a nice day – or, at least, it seemed like a nice day by Earth standards. For all Lance knew, this was mediocre weather on Arus and an _actual_ nice day was postcard-beautiful.

"Well, we always did wonder if aliens were real," said Hunk.

"Dude," said Lance, "Allura and Coran are aliens too."

"Uh, yeah, but these guys are, like, alien-aliens," said Hunk. "Allura and Coran just look like elves."

Lance paused, opened his mouth to argue, and shut it again.

"Okay," he said. "This is true."

"See, they're really old like in _Lord of the Rings_ ," said Hunk. "And they have the pointed ears."

"Eh, they don't look like Tolkien's elves," said Lance.

"You're right," said Hunk. "More like _Real Magic_ elves."

"Yes," said Lance. He paused. "Woah, dude, you're actually really right. If Allura dyed her hair pink, she could totally be Keira!"

"Who's that?" asked Coran. Lance almost jumped, mostly because he hadn't expected the man to appear next to him.

"Oh, book character," said Lance.

"Ahh," said Coran. "Altea had so many good authors. We have a vast library in the castle, in fact!"

Hunk and Lance exchanged looks.

"Got any cheesy teen romances?" asked Lance.

"Dude, no!" said Hunk. "Fantasy is the way to go, fantasy and sci-fi."

"Our lives are sci-fi now," Lance pointed out.

"That doesn't make sci-fi any less of a great genre," said Hunk.

"Fair, fair," said Lance. "And _what_ do you have against cheesy teen romance novels?"

"Uh, everything?" said Hunk.

"I'm not entirely sure what cheesy means," said Coran, "but we do have plenty of romance novels!"

"Sweet!" said Lance.

Hunk groaned. "Please, don't, he'll stay up all night crying."

"I will not!" Lance protested. "I–"

There was a sudden tremor that almost knocked an unprepared Lance off his feet. Coran caught him and steadied him, gripping his shoulder tight as alarm flickered across his features.

"Uh, what was that?" said Hunk.

Shiro's voice suddenly filtered through the comms. "Team, come in. We need back up. Hello?"

"Shiro?" said Allura worriedly.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"What's going on?" Keith demanded.

There was another tremor. Lance didn't almost fall this time, not with Coran still steadying him.

"Oh, no," he breathed.

"We have to get to our lions," said Keith.

"We left them back at the Castle," Lance realised. "Why did we leave them back at the Castle?"

Coran tightened his grip protectively on Lance's shoulder.

"Everyone," Allura called to the Arusians, "get inside and stay down."

"I'm on it," said Hunk, following the Arusians towards their houses. Keith reached out and grabbed the back of his suit.

"Not you!" he said.

"Well, we better run to the Castle," said Coran.

"You go," said Allura. "I will stay with the Arusians."

Coran watched her a moment, then nodded. "Alright, Princess."

Lance grimaced. "Well. Let's hope we don't run into trouble on the way."

* * *

Lance considered himself fairly in shape, especially with all the training he'd been doing thanks to Allura, but he was very out-of-breath by the time they reached the Castle. He leaned on Coran – who, of course, was fine, absolutely fine.

"You've been asleep for ten thousand years," he said. "How are you not dying right now?"

Coran blinked at him. "I fail to see why these are correlated? I assure you that I'm in perfect health! Er, all you alright, my boy?"

"I'm going to need a moment," he admitted.

"We don't have a moment," Keith snapped. "Get to the Blue Lion. We have to go help Shiro and Pidge."

"Yeesh, I know, I know," said Lance. "Count yourself lucky, you Altean superman."

Coran looked confused, but Lance didn't stick around to explain, running for his lion's hangar and cursing his flimsy human lungs for not having the same capacity and strength as Coran's Altean ones.

Blue was ready for him the moment he skidded into the hangar. He barely stopped before running inside to her cockpit and sitting down.

" _Hola, mi amor_ ," he said. "Let's go save Shiro and Pidge, then."

She purred in response as they rocketed out of the hangar and into the Arusian sky. The other lions joined them shortly afterwards.

"Hey, uh, guys, can you send your coordinates?" asked Hunk.

"Or we could just follow the column of smoke," said Lance.

"Yeah," said Pidge, "follow the smoke."

"Oh," said Hunk, sounding resigned and disappointed, "I was hoping that was an oddly timed coincidence."

"Alright, Blue, babe," muttered Lance, "let's go."

Luckily enough it seemed that the smoke was definitely the right place to go. Lance caught sight almost immediately of the Black and Green Lions – and the giant robot that was currently attacking them.

"Oh, boy," said Lance in horror.

Blue growled protectively.

"Alright, babe, let's get that thing," said Lance.

"We need to lay down some cover fire so Shiro and Pidge can get out of there!" Keith exclaimed over the comms.

"No kidding," said Lance. Blue started firing lasers at it at the same time Red did. Yellow, on the ground, rushed forward.

"Check it out!" said Hunk. "Battle-lion head-butt!"

Yellow slammed into the robot. It stumbled and fell. There was a flash of amusement from Blue, tinged with sadness that suggested to Lance she was remembering something from before – perhaps Hunk had reminded her of her old paladin, or the old Yellow Paladin, or something like that.

Green and Black and then finally Yellow rejoined Blue and Red in the sky as the robot struggled to its feet.

"So, uh, I'm guessing the Galra are behind this?" said Hunk.

"I think so," said Shiro. "I've never seen anything like this, though."

"Do we have a plan?" asked Lance. "Shoot at it with everything we've got? Take out its weapon? _Call it names_?"

"Well, I know one thing for sure that we need to do," said Shiro. "Form Voltron!"

Lance shrugged, and the five Lions flew upward in formation. Forming Voltron came much more naturally this time, and Lance was hit by a rush of emotion from his teammates – Keith's frustration, Hunk's fear, Shiro's determination, Pidge's utter disappointment and anger with the robot.

Why was Pidge disappointed?

He sent some curious vibes towards his smaller friend. In return he got an angry push-back. He let it go for now, because right now they needed to fight the robot beast. Robeast? Robeast sounded good.

"Remember, team, we're one unit fighting with one goal," said Shiro.

The robeast send its weird orb thing flying at them. The dodged fluidly, and Red launched forward in a punch that should have knocked the robeast flat on its mechanical back.

Instead the robeast caught the punch. Green countered with a nice uppercut to its head. It stumbled backwards. Voltron launched forward to smash it down, which should have work, except that the robeast caught that too. It made a weird gesture, and a second later Lance realised it was calling that orb back to it – just in time for the orb to smash into Voltron.

They came to their senses just in time to rocket away from the orb a second time.

"I thought Voltron was the most powerful weapon in the universe!" cried Keith.

"Yeah, well, this monster is kicking our butts!" wailed Hunk.

"It's been ten thousand years," Pidge reasoned. "I guess the Galra have advanced past Voltron–"

There was a sharp spike of indignant annoyance from all of the lions at this comment. Lance sent a soothing apology towards them.

"It's coming back around," warned Shiro.

Lance caught sight of something else out of the corner of his eye. "Wait, look out–"

Too late. The robeast body-slammed them and sent them flying over the ridge of a mountain. Lance groaned as the cockpit rattled with the force.

"Oh, no," breathed Shiro. "It's the village."

"The Arusians," Lance realised. "Allura – we have to protect them, lure it away!"

They were hit again, and this time barely managed to avoid crashing into the village.

"That was too close," said Shiro.

They flew forward, away from the village, and the robeast followed.

"Why do all the evil ships follow us?" lamented Hunk.

"Well, at least the Arusians are safe," said Pidge, "but now what?"

"I've got an idea," said Lance. "I'm gonna power-kick that orb thing."

Blue sent feelings of encouragement, like his parents and siblings cheering him on from the audience when he was in that play back home. Lance was glad she, at least, had faith in him.

"No," said Keith, who obviously had zero faith in Lance's skills. "The last time you tried to do a kick, we _fell_."

"That was then, this is now," Lance reasoned as Voltron rocketed forward. Blue was practically chanting _KICK KICK KICK KICK_ in his head, though it was less of a chant than a feeling like a chant – it was basically a chant though, come on.

The robeast threw the orb at them again. Lance gave a fierce war-cry. Blue eagerly joined him mentally.

The orb was not where the orb was supposed to be.

They missed.

"Oh, no," Lance said. Blue echoed the sentiment in their bond.

The orb collided with Black and sent them all spiralling to the ground.

"Wow, how'd now work out for you?" asked Keith.

"Shut your quiznak," grumbled Lance.

"Still doubt you're using that right," said Keith.

"Boys, knock it off," snapped Shiro. "Pidge, fire your lasers, now!"

"Got it, cap," said Pidge as Voltron stood. Blue sent a warning in Lance's head just as, instead of lasers, a shield formed in front of the Green Lion. This was followed by a sheepish feeling that roughly translated to, _I tried to warn you._

Pidge made a few confused and alarmed noises as Shiro exclaimed, "Hey, no, lasers, _lasers_!"

And then they were hit again. And once more.

Lance sent a mental apology to Blue and, really, all the lions for the huge beating they were getting.

This was pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

"If we focus on the orb, we're blindsided by the monster, and if we focus on the monster, we get the orb!" said Hunk.

"Then what do we do?" Lance asked angrily.

"Orb!" cried Pidge just in time for it to slam into them once again.

Keith said a very inappropriate word, then followed with, "Shiro, we gotta move."

There was a brief silence. Black was radiating worry, and Shiro – Shiro was radiating pure terror.

"Shiro?" said Lance hesitantly.

"Shiro, are you there?" Keith demanded.

"Shiro!" called Pidge.

"Guys, something's wrong," said Hunk.

"I know that sound," Shiro whispered. "I – in the arenas – in the fights–"

Oh, no, no, no, Lance was _not_ qualified to help Takashi Shirogane work through a PTSD flashback in the middle of a battle against a crazy evil robot.

"Shiro," said Pidge hesitantly.

"I know how to beat him," Shiro said firmly, resolute and grimly determined. Lance was secretly relieved; it seemed Shiro was alright, after all. Maybe Lance was wrong – not a PTSD flashback, just briefly remembering the sound

They dodged just in time to avoid getting smashed by the robeast.

"Listen," said Shiro. "There's a loud sound when the orb returns to the weapon. Every third time it needs to charge – and that's when we strike. That's it's weakest point."

"And what do we do while we wait?" asked Hunk in alarm.

"Defence!" said Shiro, like this was Sunday night football and not a battle that could kill them. "Pidge, we're gonna need that shield."

"Alright," said Pidge warily. He brought the shield up just in time to block the orb, though Voltron was pushed back several feet.

"Two to go," said Shiro.

The second hit. Lance and Blue had to steady Voltron as it almost stumbled and fell from the force.

"We can't take much more!" warned Hunk.

"Last one!" said Shiro.

This hit sent the shield breaking apart and flying. Voltron stumbled and fell to its knees.

"NOW!" yelled Shiro.

Red sent a laser at the robeast. It fell to its knees this time, obscured by smoke.

"Alright!" said Lance. Blue, in his mind, roared triumphantly.

The robeast stood back up. Lance and Blue promptly stopped cheering, mirror each other's horror.

"It didn't work," breathed Pidge.

"Now what?" Lance exclaimed. Blue gave a mental, mournful wail, starting up her mantra of _NOT MY PALADIN_ again even as Lance tried to sooth her. It saddened him – his poor girl was probably traumatised by the loss of her creator and her first pilot, and they just kept making things worse with their ineptness.

They were hit again.

"I had a sword last time!" Shiro said helplessly.

"Well, that's great," said Lance. "Where do we get a–"

"Orb! _ORB_!" cried Hunk.

This one hit as well. Lance hit his head hard on the back of the seat. He saw stars for a moment. Blue wailed louder.

"We can't take another shot like that," said Pidge.

Blue's wails turned angry, and from what Lance could tell they were almost – definitely – directed towards the Red Lion. There were still no words, but Lance got the basic feeling of, _I know he's not Alfor, but give him a quiznaking chance_!

He understood it moments later.

"Wait," said Keith. "My lion's telling me what to do."

Blue suddenly felt smug. Lance gripped the controls tighter. "Lions know best, dude, so go for it – and hurry! Third shot incoming!"

The shot hit them. They went flying, skidding painfully across the ground. Lance hit his head again, and felt the beginnings of a dull headache blooming. Blue was tense – well, not literally, but she felt tense based on their mental connection, anyway.

They pushed themselves up. The robeast ran at them. Keith gave a fearsome battle-cry, and suddenly Voltron was swinging a sword at the robeast. It landed behind them. They held their surely awesome and heroic pose as the robeast exploded – like the main character of an action movie. Lance let out an elated, shocked laugh. The others joined him in cheering, as did Blue.

"How did you do that?" asked Hunk.

"Woah," said Keith fondly, "thanks, Red."

Blue was sending less thanks and more _I told you so_ Red's way. Lance laughed again and shook his head.

They'd done it.

By some miracle – apparently by Red giving Keith a chance – they'd won.

"Good work, gang," said Shiro. "Let's get back to the Castle."

Coran greeted them at the Castle, laughing and cheering for them as they arrived.

"You had me on edge, for a moment there!" he declared, slinging and arm around Lance's shoulders. "You all did good, very good!"

"Heh, thanks, Coran," said Lance.

"Well, we're getting there," said Shiro. "We may have won today, team, but we still have a lot of work to do."

"Can that work wait?" asked Hunk. "'Cause – 'cause I'm, like, starving."

Coran perked up. "Perhaps I can–"

"On second thought I'd rather take a shower!" Hunk exclaimed.

"Yeah, same," said Pidge.

"Me, also," said Keith.

"What do you know, I probably need one too," said Shiro. All four of them took off.

Coran glanced to Lance. "Do any of them know where any of the showers are?"

"I don't think they do," said Lance.

"Hm," he said. "What about you, my boy? Care for some cooking with Master Chef Coran?"

Lance thought briefly back to the Paladin Lunch and almost said no, but the eagerness on Coran's face stopped him.

"You know what?" he said. "I think so. Maybe I can show you some Earth recipes. Man, you have not _lived_ until you've had my Mama's enchiladas. Real, proper enchiladas, not the stuff you get at Wal-Mart."

"I don't know what that is," said Coran.

"You're gonna love it, my man," Lance assured him. "Ah – you'll need to show me where the kitchen is though."

Coran chuckled. "Right this way, my boy. Just follow me."

 **A/N: I may have snuck in a teensy bit of shameless self-promotion in here, since, you know, I saw my chance and took it, so - yeah! I have also written original books. My first trilogy is called _What is Real Magic?_ and you can find the first book, _Courage_ , on Amazon right now by Kailynn Hanners (aka me)! I'm kinda hoping some of you may check it out? It's my baby and I love it and the rest of the series very dearly. **

**Anyway, I hope you guys liked this chapter. I totally headcanon that Lance would read cheesy teen romances and Hunk would so be into sci-fi stuff. Also, lots of Coran and Lance bonding in this chapter! I love you guys so much! Thank you for the reviews and faves and follows and just for reading this mess! 3**


	15. The Fall of the Castle of Lions

So Allura decided to throw a party for the Arusians at the Castle that night.

Lance was, of course, all for it. Ignore all the dubious looks from Hunk, parties were totally his scene. The Arusians put on a fantastic show depicting the recent Voltron battle, and then Allura gifted them some sort of communicator, and then the party began.

"You know, we need something like that," Hunk said.

Lance glanced at him. "Like what?"

"A team cheer," he said. "You know – like, what team?"

"Wildcats!" Lance and Keith shouted at the same time, before turning to each other. " _You_ like _High School Musical_?"

"Yes, so, like that," said Hunk.

"Okay, okay," said Lance, distractedly re-evaluating his entire opinion of Keith. "What about, like, 'I say VOL, you say TRON!' VOL!"

He pointed to Keith eagerly.

"…Voltron?" said Keith.

"No," said Lance. "No, absolutely not – no. The instructions are in the chant. I say VOL, you say TRON. VOL!"

"Vol… tron?" said Keith again, clearly not understanding.

"We'll work on it," Lance sighed. "Hey, Coran! My man! Ooh, what's this?"

Coran laughed and handed him a cup of something. "It's nunvill! Nectar of the gods. Delicious."

Lance shrugged and downed it, and Hunk drank his as well. Hunk promptly spat his out. Lance forced himself to swallow. " _Ay, dios mio_! It tastes like hot dog water and feet."

"It makes an excellent hair tonic as well," said Coran with a wide grin. Shiro wandered over, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Coran offered him a cup. "Nunvill? Excellent for settling the stomach."

Lance was about to warn him, but Keith put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head, smiling rather evilly as Shiro took the drink and downed it. His face contorted comically, but he was far too polite to do anything but swallow and offer Coran a strained smile.

"Thank you," he said painfully. Keith snickered. "Coran, I don't know that we should leave the castle open like this. It leaves us vulnerable."

"Oh, the Arusians won't hurt anything," said Coran. There was the sudden sound of breaking glass. He winced. "Well, not much anyway."

Shiro's lips pressed into a thin line. "Well, I'm going to do a perimeter check anyway."

He strode off.

"I better go clean up that mess," muttered Coran. "See you boys later!"

"See ya, Coran!" Lance laughed.

Keith sniffed experimentally at his nunvill, then took a sip. He made a face, then took another sip. "Not half bad." He downed the whole thing confidently, then his eyes started watering and he promptly spit it out. "Okay, now it's disgusting! I need to wash my mouth out with food goo or something."

"We probably need to get used to this space juice," said Lance, brow furrowing. "Who knows when we'll get home."

"If ever," said Hunk pessimistically. "You know, who knows how long it'll take to defeat Zarkon? We could be here until we're old and grey and we die! Or we could die fighting. In space."

Lance's face fell. "Yeah. That could happen, I guess."

Hunk grabbed one of the weird purple lollypop things and popped it in his mouth. He spoke around it. "I wonder if we'll find a nacho planet. Like the food, not your cat, although a planet about Nacho the cat would be pretty cool."

"Who knows, man?" said Lance. "But there's only one planet with Varadero Beach – and that pizza shack looking over the water that sells the _best_ garlic knots – and my mom's hugs and–"

Lance stopped and swallowed harshly.

"You okay?" asked Hunk worriedly.

"I just – I think it's the nunvill," said Lance. "I gotta go."

"Hey, you tell me if you need me, okay?" said Hunk.

"Yeah, man, I will," said Lance, forcing a smile and walking away. He passed Coran and Allura, and determinedly ducked his head so they wouldn't see that he was upset.

He ended up venturing to the control room of the Castle. It was a quiet place, and no one else was in there, so he sat on the steps and started humming to himself.

He did that, a lot, when he was upset. It was easier to distract himself if he was humming, but even the humming brought back memories – he'd known this song ever since he could remember, and as far as he knew there weren't words – or if there were, he'd long forgotten them. He closed his eyes and couldn't stop himself from thinking of Earth, of his family and his home and everything he'd left behind with no warning.

" _Oh, precious child of mine, never fear, never cry. Sleep, sleep, child of mine, I'll be here forever more._ "

Lance almost jumped. The voice had come out of nowhere, singing to the same tune that Lance had been humming. Coran sat down next to him on the steps, not looking at him but rather at something Lance couldn't see – ghosts of the past, maybe.

"An old Altean lullaby," he said. "I heard you humming it."

"Oh," said Lance. "It's just a song I've – I've known for a while now. Since I can remember. Maybe there's a human lullaby or something that sounds similar."

"Maybe," said Coran. "Did your mother sing it to you?"

"I think my birth mother might have," Lance said. "I'm – I'm adopted, see, and I don't remember my birth parents all that well. My adopted mother would sing to me, but she never actually knew that one."

"My wife would sing that song to our boy every night," Coran said softly. He laughed lightly, eyes staring far away, as if he was reliving memories of happier times. "Oh, Aluran would never sleep if he didn't hear that song!"

"You had a wife," said Lance, somewhat surprised but mostly sad for the man. He knew Coran and Allura had both lost a lot, but he hadn't realised Coran had had a family that he'd lost. "And a son."

"I did," Coran said. "You remind me of them both. When I first saw you, I could have sworn you were Aluran all grown up. You look like how I imagine he would have."

"What were they like?" Lance asked hesitantly.

"Alaea – my wife – she was just the most wonderful person in the universe," said Coran fondly. "She was kind and loving and had a soft spot for just about any small, fluffy creature she ever saw. She had attitude, I'll give her that – but it was _mostly_ directed towards Alfor, not me."

Lance suddenly remembered where he'd heard the name Aluran before. "Alfor! Was she his sister?"

"Good guess," chuckled Coran. "She was Alfor's younger sister, yes."

"What about your son?" asked Lance. "What was he like? How – how old was he?"

"He was only four deca-phoebs old," Coran murmured. Lance immediately felt bad for bringing it up, watching the heartbreak paint the Altean's face. How hard it must have been for Coran, waking up to see Lance, who apparently looked like a teenage version of his toddler son and then having to realise that son was gone forever. "Such a cheerful lad. He loved to fly – I'd always guessed he'd grow up to be a pilot, until…"

"I'm so sorry, Coran," Lance said, mostly because he didn't know what else to say. He was, in general, terrible at comforting people if he didn't have food to offer them. He contemplated giving the man a hug, but he wasn't sure how well that would be received.

"You did nothing wrong," Coran said. "And I don't think I'd accept an apology from Zarkon."

"Though that would be amusing," Lance offered.

Coran chuckled. "So it would."

They were both silent a moment.

"I miss Earth," Lance murmured, leaning up against the older man's side as if in search of comfort. Coran smiled slightly and wrapped an arm around him.

"I miss Altea," he agreed.

"I know we're supposed to be these brave defenders of the universe, or whatever, but really? I just want to go home," Lance said.

"If I could go home, I would," said Coran. "If I could have it all back – I'd take it, in a heartbeat."

"I'm sorry," Lance said again.

"No, no," said Coran. "It's alright. You can talk to me – don't worry."

Lance pulled his knees to his chest and glanced skyward. "You know? I miss rain. And splashing in puddles in the backyard with my niece and my nephew."

"Rain?" said Coran curiously.

"Oh, yeah," said Lance, "it's water that falls from the sky. A lot of people don't like it, but, me? I love it."

"We had something like that on Altea," said Coran, "except it wasn't water. It was rocks. Razor sharp, boiling hot rocks that could knock a hole right in your head."

"That sounds… fun," said Lance.

"Yeah," said Coran. "When we were your age, Alfor and I would grab old shields from the armoury and run outside under them. It was a bit of a game – whoever got the most dents in his shield, especially near the centre, won! Ah, drove both of our parents mad."

"You and Alfor were pretty close, huh?" said Lance.

Coran nodded, a bittersweet smile forming under his moustache. "We were. I miss him just as much as I miss Alaea and Aluran."

"Don't you ever go talk to him?" Lance asked. "I mean, his AI thing."

Coran looked surprised. "You know about that?"

"I mean, yeah," said Lance. "I stumbled upon it first. We talked, and I came back later and we talked some more. He seems like a pretty cool guy – like he was a pretty cool guy, I guess."

"He was actually quite warm, not standoffish or aloof in the slightest," said Coran.

"Oh, no, Earth slang," Lance said. "Cool means – like – awesome. Great. I had to explain that to him too."

Coran nodded. "Then, yes, he was quite cool."

"So do you?" Lance asked.

Coran blinked at him. "Do I…?"

"Ever talk to Alfor," he clarified.

Coran's face fell. "No. No, I – I haven't been able to bring myself to talk to him yet. Part of it – well, it's not truly my old friend, is it? But also… I failed him. I failed all of them, except maybe Allura."

"You didn't fail them," said Lance. "It wasn't your fault. I'm sure you did all you could."

"I should have done more," Coran said bitterly.

"Hey," said Lance. "After the party's over, I'll come with you and you can talk to Alfor. And I don't have to stick around or anything but – you know, moral support and all. It may not really be Alfor, but I bet he's still hurt that you're avoiding him. What do you say?"

Coran glanced at him and smiled. "Alright, then, Lance. Perhaps you're right. After the party we'll go talk to Alfor."

"Alright!" said Lance brightly.

Coran laughed. "Speaking of, what do you say we go rejoin the party?"

"Honestly, it's hardly a party without the coolest two people on the ship," said Lance, tutting disapprovingly. "My man, we're more than the life of the party, we _are_ the party."

"I assume you mean cool as in great?" Coran said.

"I know you know what I meant," said Lance.

"I did," Coran admitted with a grin. He stood, then offered Lance a hand and helped him up as well. As the door opened to let them out, Pidge's little robot – what did he call it? Rover? – flew by them. Lance waved to it, because just because it was a robot didn't mean it didn't have feelings, or something like that.

"Hey, Rover," he greeted. The thing followed Pidge around everywhere, it was almost cute. Then he stopped and turned. "Wait. Where's Pidge?"

He peered closer at the robot, in time to see it turn red and start rapidly flashing. He realised what was going to happen a second before it did.

"Coran, look out!" he yelled, running forward to tackle the Altean out of the way just as the bomb went off. Lance;s world briefly erupted into fiery pain, before everything fell into blessedly cold darkness.

 **A/N: IT'S THIS SCENE - the lullaby scene was one of my favourites to write, I really enjoyed writing this chapter.** **It's always fun to write Coran and Lance bonding. This is the only chapter for this episode, because Lance is unconscious for the rest of the episode, so... nothing else there.**

 **If anyone's interested in hearing the lullaby, sort of, I wrote it up here and you can go listen on Noteflight; just remove the spaces and add a dot com in between "noteflight" and the rest because fanfiction is weird about links:**  
 **www. noteflight /scores/view/7f9730a68b407d410340cce5eeb0a39c1e86dd10**

 **I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Love you guys so much!**


	16. Tears of the Balmera Taking Flight: P1

Lance came to slowly and painfully. He could hear sounds around him but they blurred around him confusingly. His head was pounding and his everywhere ached.

"Shiro, wake up," said a voice. At first it reminded Lance of Leida, but then he remembered he was in space – he was in space? Huh. Anyway, Leida wasn't in space, Leida was in college in North Carolina. She wasn't coming home until Christmas break. But then she still wouldn't be in space, because home was on Earth and space was space.

"Shiro," said not-Leida again. "It's Pidge. Wake up."

Pidge. Lance knew this name. Yes. Pidge was not Leida. Pidge was his teammate and friend. In space.

Then Pidge screamed. Lance forced his eyes open as a new voice spoke. "You actually thought your little hologram would work on me, runt?"

His vision was too blurred at the moment to see exactly what was going on, but after a few moments he could vaguely make out Pidge being held above the ground by a giant purple cat.

A giant purple cat?

He decided it didn't matter. He pushed himself into a better position and drew his bayard – his space weapon – and it morphed into a gun – his space gun. He aimed it as best he could with his blurred vision and shot.

The cat dropped Pidge.

Lance nodded to himself and fell back, suddenly exhausted, everything hurting even more. He heard the fight continuing, but he couldn't bring himself to pay attention.

"Lance?" said a voice, bringing him back from his dozing off. He opened his eyes again to see Keith holding out a hand towards him. He reached up to take it.

"We did it," he managed to say. "We do make a good team."

Keith laughed weakly. "You have a concussion."

"I have a concussion?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," said Keith. "Can you walk?"

Lance blinked at him. "Usually, yeah."

Keith nodded and stood, trying to pull Lance to his feet as well. Everything still hurt, and Lance stumbled and nearly fell, except Keith caught him.

"Okay, never mind," he muttered. "I'm going to just carry you."

"Okay, knight-man," mumbled Lance, as Keith shifted him and finally lifted him into his arms.

"What?" he said.

"I'm the damsel," said Lance. That was kinda funny, actually. "You're the knight. In red armour."

"Uh, okay, sure then," said Keith.

Lance leaned up against his friend, closing his eyes to try to keep his head from pounding so much. He was still kind of out of it and confused. He knew he was in space but he didn't know who the cat was or why they were fighting the cat or why he hurt so much.

"You still with me?" asked Keith.

"Mmm," said Lance.

"Okay, good," said Keith. "Hunk and Coran should be back soon."

Lance didn't know where exactly Hunk and Coran could have gotten to. He guessed anywhere. It was space. Space was big. Lance used to want to explore space and find aliens. It was so big and there _had_ to be aliens and there were, Lance was right.

Then he wasn't held by Keith's arms, he was on some surface. Had Keith put him on the ground? That was kind of rude.

"What do we do to help them?" he heard Keith demand.

"There's not much we can do," admitted Allura. "Unless either of you are trained in any sort of medicine. I – am not. I was always more inclined towards the warrior side, like my mother."

"I know first aid," said Keith. "I lived alone for a while."

"Matt was always better at first aid and stuff than me," admitted Pidge.

Lance decided to stop paying attention at that point. It was just making his headache worse. A bit of shut-eye wouldn't hurt. He let the chatter fade into murmurs and slipped into dreamless sleep.

Lance awoke to pain and someone shifting him.

"Mmm?" he managed. It was supposed to be a question, but no words came out, which was odd but didn't really matter. He was sore all over and his memory was a blur. He remembered… Keith?

"It's alright, my boy," said a voice, soft and fatherly and incredibly familiar. Lance couldn't currently place it, as out of sorts as he was. "We're going to help you to heal."

Lance leaned into the comforting presence. "Papa?"

There was a pause.

"It's okay, Lance," said the voice – Papa? It was weird that Papa wasn't speaking Spanish. "It's going to be okay."

"Hurts," murmured Lance. No Spanish from Papa, so he should stick to English, even though finding English words were getting harder and harder to find at the moment.

"I know," said Papa. "The cryo-replenishers will fix you right up."

"Mmm," said Lance. "Te amo, Papa. Love you."

Another pause.

They weren't moving anymore. Lance was standing upwards, but Papa seemed to be steadying him because he wasn't very steady himself.

"I love you, too," said Papa softly, "my son."

His hands disappeared and cold closed in on Lance as he drifted back into unconsciousness.

Lance woke up cold. He was kind of drowsy and definitely cold and the last thing he really remembered was chatting with Coran during the party. He had that song stuck in his head, behind his headache, soothing him with its familiarity.

The rest of Team Voltron was all gathered around something or other a few steps away, so Lance wandered over to them. He peered over Hunk's shoulder in confusion.

"Are you guys having a clock party or something?" he asked.

"Aw, Lance, come on, you ruined it," complained Hunk as everyone turned to him. Then his best friend lit up. "LANCE! You're awake!"

Hunk grabbed him in a Hunk Hug™ and Lance grimaced. He was a bit sore from something.

"Hey, okay, bud," he chuckled as Hunk put him down. "What happened?"

"We can tell you about it while you get something to eat," said Allura softly. "Can you walk?"

Lance blinked at her. "Yeah, unless you want to carry me. Wouldn't object, personally."

He tried to send her a grin, but he didn't feel very successful. She looked amused. "I guess you can walk then. Come."

"I'll go prepare something good," offered Coran. "Maybe more of the Paladin Lunch, since you liked it!"

Lance blanched. "Nah, man, that's fine, just goo is fine, you don't have to go out of your way for me."

Coran waved him off. "I want to! I'll catch up with you in a few doboshes!"

He speed-walked out of the room. The rest of the group started after him at a much slower pace. Hunk supported Lance as they walked.

"Glad you're okay, dude," he murmured.

Lance smiled at him, then shook his head. "Did Coran seem kind of off to you?"

"He's been off ever since you got blown up," said Hunk. Lance first tried to process that _he'd been what_!? Hunk continued talking. "The whole time we were on the Balmera he was all contemplative and he was asking me about your family and stuff? I told him you were adopted, by the way, hope you don't mind."

"I told him," Lance said.

"Okay, good," said Hunk. "But he got kinda sad and stuff? I dunno. He was even weirder after we got you into the cryopod."

"Said something about being right," piped in Pidge, appearing out of nowhere at Lance's side. "Didn't he? I'm not the only one that heard that."

"No, we all did," said Hunk. "Allura tried to talk to him about it, but looks like he's not talking. Honestly I think he blamed himself that you got hurt."

Lance winced. "I still don't know what happened, but I'm positive it wasn't Coran's fault."

"Yeah, well, tell that to Coran," said Hunk.

They'd reached the dining room by now. Lance got to sit at the head of the table, which made him feel powerful except that everyone was hovering over him like his mama and his abuela would whenever he was sick and they wanted to make sure he was eating.

Coran came out with what definitely looked like the Paladin Lunch, except a bit differently coloured.

"Hunk gave me some tips to make it a bit more similar to your Earth food," he said brightly, placing it in front of Lance. "I did worry about putting the one tuber in there, but I know Alteans can withstand fairly high levels of capsaicin and Hunk did assure me it was considered delicious on your planet!"

"What's a cap-whatever?" asked Lance.

"Dude, he made it spicy, say thank you," rebuked Hunk.

Lance blinked and grinned at Coran. "Oh, man, thanks!"

Coran smiled fondly. "Of course, my boy."

Lance took a hesitant bite. With the new additions, it was actually pretty good. It was _barely_ spicy, which Lance supposed had to do with Coran's hesitancy to use cap-whatever. Hunk would be more generous with it when he cooked next.

"So, clue me in, I heard I got blown up," said Lance.

Coran winced – it was subtle but Lance had been looking for it, and it pretty much confirmed Hunk's suspicions. "Yes. Well. The Galra sent a bomb in a copy of Pidge's Rover. You saved my life."

Lance nodded. "Good, I'm glad you're okay."

Coran rested a hand on his shoulder. "Please promise me to never do that again."

Lance stared at him incredulously. "Yeah… no. Nope, not a chance. I'd save you or anyone in this room in a heartbeat. I mean, I'm sure you guys would do the same."

"Oh, you bet, bud," said Hunk, beaming at him. "One for all and all for one!"

Coran didn't look too pleased with this answer, but there was no chance Lance would promise something like that. He hated breaking his promises, so why make a promise he knew he might have to break?

"Well, after that, me and Coran went off to get a new crystal because ours was destroyed," said Hunk. "We met this cool rock, her name's Shay."

"Hunk is in _love_ ," murmured Pidge teasingly. Hunk flushed red and glared at her.

"I am not, I just respect her, okay?" he defended.

"Well, after they left, the Arusians were supposedly attacked, so Keith and Allura went to rescue them," said Shiro. "I stayed with you, but then Sendak attacked the Castle. I tried to fight him off but… he was too powerful."

"Allura helped me try to sabotage everything the Galra were doing in the Castle," said Pidge. "But, actually, it was the mice that took down the particle barrier. I tried to fight off Sendak, but that was a mess, and you, like, woke up from your coma to shoot him! Then me and Keith fought Sendak until Allura could trap him and then Keith carried you to the infirmary."

"Yeah," said Hunk. "Then we got back and found out what all went down, and Shiro needed a pod too, so Coran did all that. And then we've just kinda been waiting."

"Huh," said Lance. "Thanks, you guys. Sounds like you all did great – and literally saved my life."

He glanced at Keith.

"Sounds like the mice did more than you, though," he said, grinning mischievously.

Keith bristled. "Excuse you? We had a _bonding moment_. I cradled you in my arms! You called me the knight in red armour!"

That unfortunately sounded like something a concussed Lance would say. He forced down the blush that ensued.

"Don't remember it," he said, which was very true. He remembered absolutely none of this and attributed that, too, to his concussion. "Didn't happen."

"That's not how it works!" Keith seethed.

"Is too, ask my siblings," retorted Lance. "Ask _Hunk_."

"He's right, that's how it works," said Hunk. "Rule of both our houses, combined. You shall not hold anything a concussed person says against them. Lance and his siblings are really clumsy."

"You walked into a wall holding your little sister!" Lance argued.

"One time! _One time_!" said Hunk.

"One time's enough, rules apply to you too," Lance shot back.

Shiro chuckled. "Good to have you back to normal, Lance."

Lance laughed and grinned at him. "Good to be back."

 **A/N: This chapter was fun, especially since Lance remembers none of the first half of it. The bonding moment was fun to write. The moment with a very confused Lance and Coran was also very fun.**

 **GUESS WHO'S FIGURED THINGS OUT? I had planned for this discovery to take place now, but for Lance? Not yet. So, so far, one person and five sentient robot lions know. :D**

 **Thanks so much for reading, you guys! I love you all so much! 3**


	17. Taking Flight: Part Two

So it turned out Lance was a lot more out of the loop than he had thought, and everyone else knew _everything_ around here and he knew _nothing_.

"You're a _what_!?" Lance blurted before he could stop himself.

"I'm a girl," said Pidge again. "A female. I have a v–"

" _Please don't!_ " Lance yelped.

"Baby," scoffed Pidge.

Lance shook his head. "Alright. Okay. I am fine with this. Totally chill. Accept you as a girl or a boy or anything else. Makes more sense than my original theory."

"Lance thought you were an alien," Hunk added helpfully.

Pidge blinked at them.

"How did I not know?" lamented Lance. "I have sisters! I should be able to recognise this! Everyone else did!"

"Lance, you are incredibly unobservant sometimes," said Hunk, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up."

Pidge still looked kind of confused that Lance thought he – _she_ was an alien, but she shook her head.

"Well," she said, "I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now let's get this castle-ship up in the air!"

Lance's brain once again had to do a forced restart. Castle-ship. The Castle was – what the fudge. What the _quiznak_. He shook his head and finally managed, " _The Castle is a ship!?_ "

"Has been, ever since it was created!" said Coran brightly.

"Are there any _other_ shocking new developments that I've missed?" Lance asked, glancing between the others and wondering how long he'd been out. Pidge was a girl. The Castle was a ship.

The others shook their heads. Hunk tried to hide his laughter and failed. Coran seemed to hesitate, but in the end he also shook his head. Lance didn't really know what _Coran_ would be hiding – but maybe he was. That was fine. He wouldn't hide anything important, right?

And anyway, Lance _obviously_ wouldn't figure it out.

So they were right. The castle was a ship. It could fly. It did fly. Lance thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. Watching Arus disappear beneath them as they shot into space – it was different than flying Blue. The ship was larger, more stable… Lance could somewhat compare it to a cruise. In space. A space cruise.

Later that night, Lance tried to track down Coran again. He had no such luck. He'd wanted to bring the man to talk to Alfor – honestly, Coran couldn't _keep_ avoiding his old friend – but he supposed it would have to happen a different day. He was going to bring Coran soon. Somehow he'd convince him.

Lance, however, wanted to talk to Alfor himself, and so found himself wandering back into the memory room. He knew the way from his room fairly easily by now. The room lit up as he walked in. Alfor greeted him with a smile. The flowers swayed gently in the invisible wind – it was so peaceful. It made Lance sad that he would never see the real Altea. Was the rest of it this beautiful and peaceful and familiar?

"Lance," Alfor said. "What brings you here tonight?"

"Ah, just to chat," said Lance, plopping down in the flowers and leaning back on his palms. "Was gonna try to bring Coran, but looks like he's asleep. It's a shame."

Alfor's eyebrows raised. "It would be good to talk to Coran again."

"I'm going to bring him as soon as I can," said Lance. "What about Allura? Does she stop by often?"

"Fairly," said Alfor. "I think it is somewhat difficult for her."

Lance nodded. He could understand that.

"I would have come back to chat sooner," he said almost apologetically, although he wasn't sure the AI could even perceive time passing. "But we met a bunch of Arusians, and then there was some sort of Robeast sent by Zarkon I guess, and _then_ we had a party, and then I got blown up, and so I'm just out of the freezy-pod thing today."

Alfor blinked at him, apparently processing all of this.

"You got blown up?" he finally said, which of course is what he chose to focus on.

That was fine, it meant Lance could boast about his heroics that he didn't remember doing.

"Yeah, there was a bomb," Lance hopped to his feet. "I saved Coran! Or so I hear. I _also_ hear that I came out of a coma to save Pidge – Pidge is a girl now, by the way."

"You humans can easily change gender?" said Alfor in surprise.

"No," said Lance. "Well – depends – are you defining gender as the societal construct or the biological parts, because that's a whole different can of worms and I don't know that I want to explain gender identity to you."

Alfor looked perplexed. "Very well then… Pidge is a girl. I shall remember this in case I ever meet her."

"You'd like Pidge," said Lance. "She's a tiny evil genius. I don't know how I didn't figure it out, what with all the mind-meld stuff. Anyway, yeah, I got blown up. Don't remember any of it because I had a concussion, I guess."

Alfor nodded. "Believe me, I understand. At least you did not get in trouble for something you could not remember doing."

"No way," said Lance.

"I will admit that I was somewhat reckless in my youth," he said ruefully. "I usually remembered what I did, however. Don't listen to anything Coran tells you. He is exaggerating."

"King Alfor of Altea, Certified Mess," crowed Lance delightedly. "Well, that's alright. Memory troubles aren't exactly foreign to me. I can't remember most of the first four years or my life. Couple of things. Fire alarms. A lullaby. Heh, Coran knew the lullaby my mother sang to me."

Alfor furrowed his brow. "Indeed?"

"Yeah," said Lance. "How did it go? Um… _sleep, sleep, child of mine. I'll be here forever more._ Something like that."

Recognition flashed in Alfor's eyes. "I know that song as well. It is an old Altean lullaby. My mother sang it to my sister and I when we were young. I used to sing it to Allura, but I think no one loved it more than my nephew."

"Yeah, Coran told me about him," said Lance, lowering his eyes. "I hadn't known he had a son or a wife or anything. I – I wish Zarkon has never destroyed Altea. Allura and Coran – and you, too – none of you deserved that."

Alfor's face had darkened. "I wish the same thing."

"This – this is what Altea looked like?" said Lance, gesturing to the flowers and mountains and beauty around them.

A small smile returned to Alfor's face as he nodded and looked around. "Yes. This field was near the castle. Allura adored it – she always dearly loved the juniberry flowers. Her mother did, too. Those mountains – Coran and I used to explore them, about when we were your age. There was so much hidden within that mountain ranger – I always found it incredibly fascinating. Altea truly was a wonderful and beautiful place, and it had so many wonderful things even we had not yet discovered."

"It sounds amazing," Lance said. "I wish I'd been around to see it."

"There are maps and info-books in the Castle's library," offered Alfor. "I know it is not the same, but if you ask Coran, I'm sure he could explain everything. I expect you do not speak or read Altean."

"I know the word quiznak," Lance offered.

Alfor had clearly not been expecting _this_ and he burst into laughter.

"You do not know what that means, do you?" he asked after he had managed to control his laughter.

"I know it's a curse word," said Lance innocently. "Learned it from Coran."

Alfor covered his mouth with a hand to hide his grin.

"Never let him live it down," he said. "Ah, my dear friend! The first Altean word you teach the newcomers is _quiznak_."

"What does it mean?" asked Lance curiously.

Alfor's grin widened. "I am not going to tell you."

"Aw, come on, Alfor," Lance whined.

"Ask Coran," said Alfor. He paused. "Ask Coran but bring him here first. I would like to see his reaction."

Lance laughed. "Alright, alright, sounds like a plan, dude."

There was a brief silence. Alfor still looked very amused by Lance's limited knowledge of Altean, which mostly meant Lance should learn more Altean and then show off the next time he came by.

Lance was good at languages. He could manage it.

"I should probably go to bed," he admitted. "Knowing Allura, she'll have us up early again."

Alfor chuckled. "Go on, then. If you humans are anything like Alteans, you teenagers need your sleep. My daughter is simply strange."

Lance snorted. "You said it, Alfor. Well, uh, goodnight."

"Goodnight, Lance," said Alfor.

The room fell back into darkness.

* * *

"Okay, so, when we get there, what are we doing? Do we just roll up and start blasting? Or do we land and offer for the Galra to surrender, like, "Attention, Galras, this is Voltron. Turn yourselves in"? No. Blasting, right? They won't turn themselves in. Would they? That'd be better."

So Hunk was mildly freaking out again. Lance couldn't tell how much of his friends nervous energy was excitement and how much was panic. It was kind of like the first time they went on a rollercoaster – Hunk had freaked out then, but he'd also been pretty cheerful about it. Lance chalked it up to this Shay girl Hunk _respected_.

"Hunk, calm down," said Keith, a fond sort of exasperation colouring his voice. "And, yes, blasting."

"He's excited," chuckled Shiro. "It _is_ our first big rescue mission."

"Yeah, excited to see his girlfriend," said Pidge slyly.

Hunk's face turned scarlet. "She's not my girlfriend! She's just a rock that I met and admire very much!"

"Like Elaine in seventh grade?" asked Lance innocently.

It didn't seem possible, but Hunk's face went even redder. "Oh, shut up."

Suddenly, the castle's alarms shot off. Lance jumped in his seat, startled once again. Oh, he really hated their alarms.

"What is it?" said Shiro. "Are we under attack?"

"No," said Coran. "It's a distress beacon."

"I wonder who," said Pidge, leaning forward in her seat.

"They have to wait, Shay comes first," said Hunk.

"The Paladin Code states we must help _all_ of those in need," said Allura disapprovingly. "The Balmera will have to wait."

Hunk grumbled something under his breath but otherwise didn't argue.

Lance could see the origin of the distress beacon up ahead. Some ship had been crashed on some moon or asteroid or something. Lance wondered how common that was in space. If the Galra had created such a huge empire, shouldn't they have created something like the space police? Or like space Geico or something? Call somebody and they'll come tow your broken-down ship?

Maybe _they_ were the space police.

"This is so cool!" decided Lance. He could roll with being the space police. "We're the space cops on space patrol! Coran, can we turn on a siren?"

Coran glanced back at him with warm amusement. "Afraid not, my boy, but we can certainly record you making a siren noise and broadcast that."

"Yeah, alright!" cheered Lance, before cupping his hands around his mouth and making the best police siren sound he could.

"No," said Shiro quickly. "We're not doing that."

"Coran, broadcast my voice," said Allura, which was so unfair.

"Yes, Princess," said Coran, before winking at Lance and lowering his voice. "We'll record your siren later."

"Yes," Lance cheered quietly.

"Attention, damaged craft," said Allura loudly. "This is Princess Allura of Altea. We are coming to assist you."

Lance was somewhat unsure if they'd even be able to land on this asteroid thing, but Allura and Coran managed it. Lance stood and stretched. It was time to be the super cool space police.

"Coran," said Allura, "stay aboard and try to get as many of our systems clear of the Galran crystal energy as you can."

"You've got it, Princess," he said.

"The rest of you," she said, "come with me."

 **A/N: Hey, guys, I know I disappeared for a while, but voila! A new chapter! I've got a couple of chapters to upload here, but after that things will be a bit more sparse as I focuse on my internship and stuff. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 3**


	18. Taking Flight: Part Three

So.

Minor problem.

The people they were rescuing?

They were both _hot as hell_.

The girl (or he assumed she was a girl, but who knew, they were in space, after all) was yellow and she looked straight out of Star Wars, which was pretty cool. She smiled sweetly at them, hands at her hips. The guy (again, an assumption) was purple with white hair and a perfect rebellious look about him. He stood with arms crossed, but he also smiled to see them arrive.

Aliens were not supposed to be this attractive. It wasn't fair. What if humans were the ugly race of the universe? That would be even more unfair – well, the Galra didn't seem to be that hot. So maybe he was safe after all.

"You have no idea how glad we are to see some friendly faces," said the guy. "Most don't want to get tangled up with people who're on the run from the Galra."

"Oh, I'd get tangled up with you anytime," Lance said, shooting them a wink and his signature finger-guns. Hunk sighed in exasperation. The two aliens looked amused; the girl giggled – score!

"You guys are fighting the Galra?" asked Keith.

The guy scoffed. "I doubt Zarkon's really quaking in his boots at the three of us, but we do our best. I'm Rolo. This is Nyma, and this is our cyber-unit, Beezer."

Pidge had gone starry-eyed in an instant; she shot to the robot and began inspecting it – him? – her? "He's so beautiful, I love him."

Lance gave the two aliens his best flirty grin. "The name's Lance, but you can call me whatever you like."

Shiro (the spoilsport) sent him a disapproving look, then returned his attention to the hot aliens. "Was your ship damaged in a fight?"

Rolo nodded. "Yep. We've really been through it with the Galra lately. Parts are… hard to come by. We managed to limp to this moon about a week ago, but if you hadn't picked up our distress beacon…"

Lance winced. He could imagine what might have happened. He didn't know anything about the way these aliens worked, but chances were they would have run out of food or something. Starvation, to Lance, sounded like a horrible way to go.

"I'm glad we found you, then," said Lance sincerely.

"It is good that you did," agreed Nyma.

"We are happy to help you," said Allura. "I am Princess Allura from Planet Altea. From now on, you will not be alone in fighting the Galra. You shall have Voltron on your side."

Both blinked at them, completely uncomprehending.

"Okay," said Rolo slowly. "That's… great."

Yeah.

Okay.

That made sense.

Shiro laughed awkwardly. "I don't think they've heard of us."

Allura looked aghast. Lance got it – probably ten thousand years ago Voltron had been the talk of the town. Everyone knew about it, everyone loved it. Maybe there were even Voltron memes.

Holy _quiznak_ , were there Voltron memes?

He was so going to have to ask Coran. If there were Voltron memes back in the day, Lance would have to learn them and use them endlessly and never stop teasing Alfor about them.

"It has been ten thousand years," Keith reminded the princess.

"Voltron?" said Shiro again. "It's, ah, it's these five robot lions that combine into a, uh, man?"

Neither alien seemed to get it.

"Robot lions?" said Rolo.

"What's a lion?" said Nyma, tilting her head.

That also made sense. Lions were an Earth animal, so there was no reason these two aliens would have any idea what they were.

Except Coran and Allura and Alfor all obviously knew what they were. Which made zero sense. What were the odds that two completely different planets both had creatures called lions that looked like lions?

"Well, sounds impressive," admitted Rolo. "I'd love to see it. Him. Them?"

Hunk had apparently had enough small talk, because he huffed and crossed his arms. "Don't we need to fix your ship? I'm sure all of us have places to be, so let's just get on that."

Lance raised his eyebrows. This level of impatience was really unlike Hunk; he was one of the friendliest guys Lance knew. There was only one real reason his best friend would be acting like this.

Hunk was _so_ into that Shay girl.

"Yeah, of course," said Rolo amiably. He walked over to his ship and opened a panel to reveal a whole bunch of mechanics Lance knew absolutely nothing about. "Come on. Pretty much the whole flaxum assembly's shot. Don't know if your fancy ship's got one or any supplies for it."

"I'm sure we can get you back up and running," Allura assured them. "Give Hunk a list of what you need – Hunk, Coran can show you where to find the spare parts are located."

Hunk pouted. "Alright, fine."

"We can go with you," said Rolo. "Help carry–"

"Absolutely not!" said Hunk in alarm.

"Hunk!" reprimanded Allura in surprise.

Lance was also rather surprised, but he couldn't help but think that Hunk had a point. As attractive as these two aliens were, they couldn't necessarily trust them. Yet. Rolo was purple – who knew, maybe he was a Galra? If so, that meant Galra _could_ be hot and _weren't_ the ugly creatures of the universe, which might end up being a small problem for Lance in the long run – not that he'd get distracted in a fight, of course.

"Look, I'm sorry, but do we remember the _last_ time we let our defences down?" said Hunk. "Someone set off a bomb. Lance almost _died_."

Lance winced. While he didn't actually remember it happening, he definitely didn't want to repeat the experience.

"Hunk's right," agreed Shiro. "We have to be careful. It's not you, it's just…"

"I get it," said Rolo. "Dangerous times. No worries. You have to look out for your own – you're doing a good job. Hunk, was it?"

"Thanks," muttered Hunk. "I'll go – check with Coran. I guess."

"You need any help?" offered Lance.

"I'm fine," said Hunk. "Don't worry – you just – no repeats of tenth grade!"

Lance gave him an insulted look. "I have _grown_ from the incident, Hunk, there will be _no_ repeats!"

Hunk didn't look like he believed him but left anyway; Lance shrugged off his friend's lack of faith. That was fairly normal. Sometimes Hunk seemed to think Lance would do something stupid whenever left alone, which was _so_ not true.

Most of the time.

Sometimes.

Besides, he wasn't alone.

Rolo watched Hunk leave for a moment, a strange expression across his features (aw, no fair, the hot guy was into _Hunk_? Fine, Hunk could have Rolo, then, and Lance would focus on Nyma), before sitting back down at their little makeshift camp. The rest of them hesitantly migrated over as well.

"Gonna get dark soon," said Rolo. "We're lucky to be close enough to a star to have some light. And that this moon happens to have oxygen. Your kinds use oxygen? Ours do."

Lance, who had been completely taking for granted the fact he could actually breathe here, took a deep breath. The air was a little bit thin, which kind of explained his mild headache. Suddenly he found himself wondering if different aliens needed different levels of oxygen. Did some not need oxygen at all? What was the difference between Alteans and humans in the respect? Was Allura just like, yeah, this is _living_ right here, or was she suffering, or was this just kind of mildly uncomfortable like it was for Lance?

He mentally filed away his questions for later and stood by Nyma on the outer edge of the little camp, while Allura and Shiro leaned up against a couple of containers. Pidge was still fawning over Beezer, which didn't surprise Lance. Girl or not, Pidge's first love would always be robots.

"My planet was destroyed by the Galra," said Rolo, face darkening. "I was captured, along with a lot of the rest of my family. I – I never saw them again. I managed to escape, but – well – not before I lost something."

He rolled up his pant leg to reveal a metal prosthesis in the place of what should have been normal flesh. Shiro winced and grabbed his own prosthetic arm. "Yeah. I know how you feel."

What was with the Galra and removing people's limbs? They even took their own limbs off!

Maybe he could ask Coran if it was a Galra cultural thing.

"What do you know about Zarkon's forces?" asked Allura, trying and failing to conceal how eager she was to know. "Where are they concentrated? How many in which parts of the universe?"

"Well," said Rolo. "Command ship's right in the centre of the Empire. Always found that weird, that it's not on whatever planet the Galra are from."

"We're not entirely sure what planet the Galra are from," said Nyma.

Allura's face had turned grave, which meant she probably knew and it probably wasn't good. Part of Lance wanted to guess that the planet was called Galra (like, Alteans came from Altea so wouldn't Galrans come from Galra?), but most of his intuition told him that wasn't even slightly right.

Before she ever got the chance to say anything, Hunk dragged out a large container from the Castle. It didn't look too heavy, but that may have been because it was floating on a thingamajig.

"Well, with any luck, this will have some parts in it," he said, sending Rolo a scowl. "You know. For your ship. That's broken."

"Of course," said Rolo. He returned his attention to Allura. "Well, anyway, Zarkon mostly calls the shots from there. He never does any of his dirty work. Has people in charge of different sectors – this one's under the control of a nasty bugger named Sendak."

"We've met," said Keith shortly.

"Are we close to the centre?" said Shiro.

Rolo shook his head. "Oh, no, we're way out on the fringes."

"Hey, so, sorry to interrupt, but Rolo and I have got to get his ship fixed," said Hunk. "We're – we're kind of in a hurry. There's this hero-rock named Shay and I promised we'd come rescue her and her people."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, sure," said Rolo. "Let's get to it."

Lance turned his attention away from them and shot Nyma a winning grin. "So, you see, there are only five of us in the entire universe. It's kind of a big deal."

"I'm not sure I understand," she admitted. "These… lions… they are ships? But are not normally?"

"Well, on my planet, they're animals," said Lance. "Like – cats? Feline? Lions are pretty cool. I used to love _The Lion King_."

"Your king is called a Lion King?" she asked.

Lance blinked. "Uh, no? It's a movie. About a lion named Simba who – you know, never mind. Yes, these lions are ships. They're magic, but also super scientific and really advanced – they fly super fast and have great weapons. The whole Castle is really amazing. I'd love to show you sometime, you know, maybe once this whole mess has cooled down some."

"It _is_ too bad we cannot go inside," she said. "I'd love a tour from one of the knights! But I suppose the yellow one is in charge? You have to listen to him?"

"Hunk?" scoffed Lance. He didn't _have_ to listen to Hunk. It was just generally more beneficial to his health if he did. He would readily admit that, of the two of them, his best friend had a lot more common sense. So if Hunk said they stayed out, it was probably a good idea.

Except that Nyma was looking at him with the most adorable face. How could Lance possibly say no to that? They seemed trustworthy. He wouldn't get blown up again.

"Well," he said carefully. "I'm sure a little tour wouldn't hurt."

Her face lit up and she grabbed his hand. "Let's go, then!"

Oh, yeah, so totally worth it.

 **A/N: Aaand Lance is a fool when it comes to attractive faces. Also hella bi, and I love him for it. So, hope you enjoyed this chapter! There's a couple more before I'm caught up posting (I am a mess, I admit it), and then it'll be back to iffy update schedule. Thanks for reading! 3**


	19. Taking Flight: Part Four

Nyma looked around in wonder as they walked into the Castle. Lance didn't blame her – it was pretty amazing. Somehow, while the place was alien and cool and futuristic, it still managed to feel as much like home as, well, _home_. He wondered if Nyma noticed it too, or if that was just him.

"This place is incredible," she breathed. "It's really Altean?"

"Yep," said Lance.

She gave him a curious look. "So are all of you Altean, as well? We thought your kind extinct."

"Oh, no, no, no," laughed Lance. "I'm not Altean – the only Alteans are Allura and Coran. Me, I'm just a plain old human."

"Well, I don't think you're plain," she offered.

Lance felt his cheeks turn scarlet. "O-oh, well, thanks, Nyma!"

She giggled. "Show me more! This place is so big! It must take you ages to get to your lion."

"Actually, it's really fast," said Lance, trying to get his cheeks to cool down because it was kind of embarrassing that she could make him blush so easily. "Come on, I'll show you!"

He led her through the Castle to the entrance to the zip-lines. Some little part of him in the back of his mind said this was a bad idea and he'd only just met Nyma, but the rest of him was cheering him on because it was certainly looking like he was about to get a hot space girlfriend, so he didn't listen to that little part.

He was very bad at listening to it, anyway. Hunk was ninety-five percent of his impulse control, after all.

"Hold on," he told a starry-eyed Nyma as he grabbed onto the zip-line. She wrapped her arms around him, and he unsuccessfully fought down another blush. It should be noted that Lance has never actually had a pretty girl cling to him like this before (besides Leida, and she was his sister, so it didn't count and, anyway, it usually meant she wanted something). This was a big step.

They reached Blue as quickly as Lance had expected.

"Incredible," breathed Nyma, stepping towards Blue with awe on her face. "Take me on a ride around the moon?'

Lance hesitated. The little part of him in the back of his mind that, as a side note, sounded exactly like Hunk, was a lot louder in warning him this time. "I don't know. We should get back. Hunk's a fantastic mechanic, he's probably about done fixing your ship."

She sighed and deflated. "You're right. Well, maybe Keith will give me a ride."

That was a low blow.

The sad thing?

It worked.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Lance hurried to say. "What's one spin around the moon going to hurt? Come on. Blue's the best lion, anyway."

Nyma beamed and followed him into Blue. Blue welcomed her curiously, again reminding Lance of Nacho the way she seemed to ask about the newcomer. Then she caught Lance's interest in the alien, and her curiosity turns sharp and teasing in a way much more reminiscent of all of Lance's relatives every time he mentioned a new name (because, yes, every time, it was, "Oh, does Lancey-Lance have a new crush?").

 _Shush_ , Lance grumbled mentally.

"She's impressive, isn't she?" Lance said proudly to Nyma.

"She really is," Nyma agreed. They shot out of the hangar, and Nyma laughed excitedly. The sound was music to Lance's ears. The moon looked really pretty from above, and Nyma's grin was contagious.

Hunk was probably going to be mad at him for this, but no harm done.

"Look!" Nyma exclaimed. "A kinetic spring! They are beautiful – let's land there."

Lance, again, hesitated, but he pushed the hesitance away and nodded. "Alright, beautiful, clear for landing."

She giggled again. Blue sent more teasing nudges towards Lance.

 _You are such a mom_ , he told her mentally.

She seemed more than pleased with this and sent an image of what must have been some sort of Altean wedding cake his way. His cheeks heated up again, and Blue's smugness practically radiated off of the dashboard.

They landed near the spring, and Blue let them out. Lance dropped his helmet and walked over to the spring. It really was beautiful, the water reflecting a ton of different colours in a rainbow. It wasn't anything like home, and the sight of water sent a sharp pain through his heart for a half a second before it dissipated and he let himself admire the alien spring.

"Hey, Lance, come check this out," said Nyma brightly. He wandered back towards her. What she seemed to want him to check out was a tree. He raised an eyebrow. "Here, give me your hand."

Naively, _stupidly_ , he trusted her and gave her his hand. Then, before he could register the betrayal, she handcuffed him to the tree. The sting of hurt is quickly replaced by outrage.

"What – hey!" he protested. "Nyma, what are you doing?"

"Sorry, Lance," she said. "Maybe we'll meet again."

"Nyma!" he yelled.

Blue's barrier went up as Nyma approached her. Frustration bloomed in Nyma's expression. Lance winced as Blue growled threateningly, though Nyma couldn't hear it. Of course _he_ would be the one to fall for her tricks – she was the femme fatale, the pretty lady who seduced the hero and then ruined them, and Lance hated that he'd been the one seduced.

"Okay, kitty, let me in," said Nyma softly. "Come on, kitty."

The roar Blue let out said everything. Even Nyma could hear it; she stepped back in alarm.

"Let me in, you stupid thing!" she exclaimed.

Lance felt a spike of indignation at this. "Don't you dare call _my_ number one girl stupid!"

Then there was a gun pointed at him. He froze, eyes wide. Nyma wasn't looking at him. "Let me in, or I shoot your paladin."

 _Don't let her in_ , Lance begged mentally. But, as he said earlier, Blue was such a mom. The barrier fell. Lance closed his eyes. _Dammit, Blue, she's working for the Galra._

 _I'm sorry, my paladin_ , said Blue back to him, even as she let Nyma inside. _Trust me, my paladin_.

Lance hated it. This was his fault. But Blue was thousands of years old, and wiser than he'd ever be. So he told her, _I trust you_.

Then, he had to watch as his lion, his connection to Earth, his _friend_ was taken away.

He wallowed in his guilt for at least a half an hour before he decided he couldn't just sit around and do nothing. Granted, he couldn't do much – he was handcuffed to a tree, after all.

But there – there was his helmet, just a few inches away from him. And with his helmet he could contact his team. So he stretched as far as he could, reaching for the discarded helmet with his feet.

"Just – a bit – further," he strained, before finally reaching it. "Yes!"

He pulled it towards him, mentally thankful for all the gymnastics he'd done back on Earth, because it made it easier to bring the helmet close to him without using his hands. He managed with a lot of struggle to get it onto his head.

"Finally," he murmured, then, hoping his comms would work, "Guys?"

Nothing.

"Hello?" he tried again. "Some help?"

"Lance?" came Shiro's voice, finally. Lance deflated with relief. "Lance, what's going on? Where are you?"

Lance grimaced. This was going to suck. "I'm – sort of chained to a tree on the other side of the moon."

Silence.

Oh, boy, they hated him.

"I knew it," said Hunk.

"Also Nyma took Blue," Lance added quickly, trying to rip the bandage off.

"I _knew it_!" Hunk said again, this time even more forcefully.

"But how?" said Allura. "Surely the Blue Lion would not go willingly."

"Blue told me to trust her," Lance admitted. "Also, Nyma may have pulled a gun on me."

All of Hunk's smugness bled away. "What? Are you hurt? Oh, no, you're dying, aren't you!?"

"Woah, Hunk, no, I'm not hurt," said Lance, before adding quietly, "physically, anyway."

"Where are they?" said Shiro.

"She's probably meeting up with Rolo," said Pidge. "He took his ship for a _test run_."

"I knew we couldn't trust them," said Hunk, righteous anger and smugness back now that he had been reassured that Lance wasn't hurt. "I mean, at first it was just this gut feeling, but then I was replacing the pipe, it was cracked, but all the hardware was okay! And–"

"Okay, we get it!" said Keith.

Lance should have known. Hunk's gut feelings had never led him astray before, after all.

"I'm just saying, if the thermal pipe is cracked, the whole thing should be totally roasted–"

"Okay," said Keith again, "we get it!"

"We should have had to replace just about everything in there, so I knew then that this had to be foul play–"

At that point, it seemed everyone was fed up, because they all yelled, "Okay, we get it!"

"And I was right," Hunk had to add.

"We must go retrieve the Blue Lion," said Allura. "Paladins, to your lions. Lance… just…"

"Hang tight?" Lance suggested resignedly. "Alright, Princess. I'll wait right here… not like I can go anywhere else."

Waiting was never fun. One time, Lance got stuck at the airport on his way home for the holidays from the Garrison. It had been kind of surreal, because nobody was really at the airport at three o'clock in the morning, so it ended up being him and Hunk and some homeless guys and that was about it until Marco could get his car fixed and come get them.

This was a lot like that, except he didn't have Hunk or even the homeless guys. Just Lance and a tree and a rainbow spring and the sound of the battle that seemed to be going on with the others.

It sucked. He could only hope they wouldn't, like, kick him off the team for this.

 _Way to go, Lance_ , he thought to himself. _Fall for the hot people's tricks._

Finally, after what felt to Lance like _forever_ , Keith addressed him over the comms: "Hey, Lance, I got your lion."

"Thank you, Keith," said Lance – words he never really imagined himself saying unironically. "Now, can you come unchain me?"

There was a silence. It was a familiar silence – the type of silence that said, "I am about to be a piece of shit." He was a younger brother, he very much knew that silence.

"What?" said Keith. "I can't hear you. You're – bzzt – cutting out!"

"Did you just – _Keith_!" Lance yelled. "Keith! I thought – you said we bonded!"

"Concussion, doesn't count!" Keith practically sang.

"Keith, you jerk!" Lance yelped.

Keith laughed. "Calm down, lover boy, I'm on my way."

Lance had to wonder if he had a concussion _now_ , because no way did _Keith_ just call him _lover boy_.

It only took a few minutes for Red and Blue to both land by Lance. Keith ran over to him, clearly trying not to laugh, and undid the handcuffs. "Did know you were into that."

Lance turned scarlet. "I cannot believe you, Keith Kogane."

"Come on," said Keith. "Everyone's waiting for you. Hunk's pissed."

"Great," muttered Lance, even though he was expecting it. He climbed into Blue, who purred and sent him a very smug, I-told-you-so feeling. "Hey, Blue, miss me?"

 _My paladin_ , she said, before they took off and fly back to the Castle. It wasn't a far flight. Nyma and Rolo were still there, their ship definitely broken this time. Lance glared at Nyma as he got out, and she at least had the decency to look apologetic.

Hunk punched him in the arm, then hugged him. "This is why you need me."

Lance chuckled. "You're not wrong, bud."

Coran smiled and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I'm glad you're alright, my boy. Don't be too embarrassed. Alfor and I did stupider things for less of a reason."

Somehow, Lance believed this.

"Since your ship is actually shot this time, you'll have to wait for a rescue," said Keith, arms cross and face sour.

"Thank you," said Rolo, which sounded really out of place to Lance, "for sparing our lives."

"We're not the Galra," said Shiro. "You were only trying to survive."

Rolo bowed his head. Nyma looked away.

"Well," said Hunk, "now that this is done, let's get to the Balmera and save Shay and her family."

"Your girlfriend and in-laws?" Lance offered.

"Shut up!" Hunk managed.

"Hey," called Rolo. They all stopped. Lance furrowed his brow. What did he want now? "You may not believe me, but I really do hope you stop Zarkon."

"We will," said Allura.

Rolo inclined his head. "Good."

 **A/N: Hey, guys! T** **his chapter ended up being more fun than I expected. I will readily admit that the little airport anecdote comes from experience. Write what you know, right? I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! 3**


	20. Return to the Balmera: Part One

"I'd like to preface this with: it was not my fault," Lance said as Alfor's AI came to life. The Altean raised an eyebrow, clearly amused.

"Hello to you too, Lance," he said.

"I am completely and totally a victim of the whole thing," Lance continued. He was pretty sure he and Alfor were chill enough by now that he could just start conversations like this. By the laughter in the AI's eyes, he was probably right.

"Oh?" said Alfor. "And what is the whole thing?"

"So, we stopped to help out these people who were stranded – both of them very, very attractive mind you," said Lance. "Hunk's super not pleased, because it means we won't reach the Balmera until tomorrow, not that it's easy to tell tomorrow in space. Anyway, so I was trying to be nice, and I gave the pretty girl a tour of the Castle. And then she wanted a ride on Blue, and we stopped at this spring and – well, and then she handcuffed me to a tree."

"Oh, dear," said Alfor.

"Yeah, and she threatened me to get Blue to cooperate, and I was stuck there for _forever_ ," complained Lance. "We did get Blue back, don't worry. But Keith won't drop it!"

"If it helps," offered Alfor sheepishly, "you're not the only one to have fallen for an attractive face."

Lance stared at him for a second, then covered his mouth to prevent a laugh from escaping. "No way. _You_?"

"I was young!" Alfor protested. "But you can ask Coran for that story. Believe me, he loves to tell it."

"Oh, I will," said Lance. He paused. "Speaking of Coran, has he come by yet?"

Alfor's momentary silence and brief frown were all the answer Lance needed.

"Okay!" said Lance, not giving the dead king a chance to respond. "I'll be right back. You wait here! Or – uh, I guess there isn't much else you can do. Be right back!"

He ran out of the AI room before Alfor could say a word. Coran needed to talk to his old friend, if only for some form of closure, and AI or not, Alfor seemed to want to talk to Coran. It was the least Lance could do to make sure it happened.

He found Coran's room pretty easily. The man wasn't asleep yet, luckily, and he looked up from whatever he was reading as Lance entered. His expression turned soft.

"Hello, Lance," he said. "Do you need anything?"

"You said you'd talk to Alfor after the party," Lance said. "Well, it's after the party! So we're going to talk to Alfor."

Coran looked stunned. "We are?"

"Come _on_ , Coran," said Lance. "Please? It'll be good for both of you."

For good measure, he unleashed his _ojos de cachorro_. Ricky was actually better at the puppy-dog eyes than he was, but he was pretty good, and he had a good feeling it would work on Coran.

Coran sighed. "Fine. We're going to talk to Alfor."

"Alright!" cheered Lance.

Coran chuckled fondly and set his book aside. He stood and Lance went ahead and started walking back towards the AI room; Coran fell into step beside him.

"By the way," he said, "Alfor told me to ask you for the story about him falling for an attractive face and getting into trouble."

"Did he now?" said Coran. "Usually he would avoid those at all costs."

" _Those_?" Lance repeated, latching onto the very best part of the statement, which would of course be the part that implied there were multiple stories. Coran's wide, mischievous smile told Lance all he needed to know. "Okay, I'm going to _have_ to hear these."

"Before he met Allura's mother, Alfor was a _disaster_ when it came to romance," said Coran. "Not that he was any good once he met Fala, mind you, but she at least put up with his sad attempts."

"I think I would pay to see this," said Lance.

"Don't worry about that," said Coran, giving him a conspiratorial smile. "I caught some on video when we were younger."

Lance laughed loudly, and Coran shushed him quickly. Lance realised belatedly the others were probably asleep. They continued the rest of the way to the AI room in mostly silence. Lance hoped he was doing the right thing – he hadn't thought about it before, but he supposed by making Coran meet with the AI of his old friend he could make the grief worse.

"If you really don't want to do this," said Lance hesitantly.

"I'll stop you there, my boy," said Coran softly. "I do want to see Alfor again. I just needed some prompting."

Lance nodded. They had reached the AI room again. Lance walked in first, and the room lit up again with the flowers and beauty of Altea. Coran entered behind him, looking around with a sad sort of smile on his face.

"Coran," said Alfor, clearly mildly surprised even though he had to have known that Lance was going to get the man. 'It is… good to see you."

"Alfor, my friend," said Coran softly. "I've missed you."

Lance glanced between them and smiled. "I'll leave you guys alone to talk."

He started to leave, content to let the two old friends catch up. He was stopped at the doorway by Coran's voice. "Lance."

Lance looked back at them.

"Thank you," said Coran.

"Anytime," said Lance in response, before finally leaving the room. He needed to catch up on sleep – tomorrow was probably going to be a lot of work. After all, freeing an entire planet wouldn't be easy.

* * *

Morning came far sooner than Lance would have hoped. All of them gathered in the dining room to eat breakfast before reaching the Balmera. Lance, with his full bowl of the green food goo that had surprisingly begun to grow on him (especially now that Hunk was sneaking in that spice he'd found), sat next to Coran.

"Good talk last night?" he asked.

Coran smiled softly. "Indeed, though I admit to being a bit tired this morning."

"Guess you had a lot to talk about," said Lance. "I always lose track of time in there."

"When we were boys, Alfor and I would camp out in hidden corners of the castle and stay up all night to talk," said Coran fondly. "Dodging everyone else awake was always a welcome challenge."

"My siblings and I used to do that sometimes," said Lance. "Me and Leida most of all. I wasn't that old when Javier and Maria both got all responsible on us, but Leida is only like two years older than me. He's the only one that doesn't really remember a time before me, you know? I sometimes think that's why we're the closest. Well, not that Javier and Maria and I aren't close, we really are – I'm rambling, sorry."

"Nonsense," said Coran amusedly. "I enjoy hearing about your family on Earth."

"You'll have to meet them one day," Lance said. "They'll love you."

"Perhaps I will, someday," said Coran. "I look forward to it."

Lance hesitated a moment. "Well, and – if you ever want to talk more about your family, I'd love to listen."

Coran's amusement softened. "Thank you, Lance. I may take you up on that offer. There are many tales of Alaea I want to tell you."

Lance felt kind of bad about the sadness in the older man's eyes, but Coran seemed glad that Lance had offered to listen. He wondered why Coran hadn't mentioned his son – Lance liked little kids and stories of little kids.

Speaking of – next time he visited Alfor he was so asking for baby stories about Allura.

Once all of them finished breakfast – even a nervous Hunk, which took some prodding because he knew better than anyone that all the excitement might make his stomach upset – they headed to the control room.

"We'll be arriving at the Balmera soon," said Allura as they walked in. Coran made his way to the main control station, or whatever. "Freeing the Balmerans from Zarkon's grasp is not going to be easy."

"So what is the plan?" asked Lance. "Just go in and – _pow, pow, pow_! – free the prisoners?"

Keith gave him an unimpressed look. "What was that noise?"

Lance grinned at him. "Laser guns."

"No, Lance," said Hunk to Lance's complete lack of surprise. The sound of laser guns was an age-old argument in their friendship, one they could never truly resolve but kept bringing back up. "I think you mean – _byow, byow, byow – vooom – pyew_!"

Lance continued to be utterly unimpressed by his best friend's so-called _laser gun sounds_.

"That sounds like fireworks," Lance said, like he always did.

"You know, technically," said Pidge, "they're more like – _ba-choo, ba-choo, ba-choo_!"

Okay, that was just offensive if you asked Lance.

"Okay, enough with the bad sound effects," said Shiro, and Lance almost thanked him for his timely intervention until he continued. "Besides, it's more like – _blam, blam, blam_!"

Keith too looked offended by this, though Lance wasn't sure if it was at the blasphemously awful laser gun sounds or the fact that Shiro was joining in at all. " _What_?"

"You're crazy," said Pidge.

"No way," Lance agreed.

"Yeah, _wrong_ ," said Hunk.

"Paladins, focus!" Allura exclaimed.

Hunk snapped out of it the quickest, probably because he was so invested in the mission. "She's right. Anyway, we can't just shoot up the Galra. The Balmera is alive, and from what we've seen… well, it's not doing too good."

Coran pulled up a heat scan of the planet-creature. Lance didn't understand heat scans, so he couldn't do anything but take their word for it not doing too good.

"Yes," said Coran solemnly. "It's an atrocity, what the Galra have been doing to this grand creature. Stealing its crystals, its very life force, without ever performing the energy rejuvenating rituals in order to heal it. They're killing it."

"Seeing Shay's people enslaved like this – it made me realise just how bad Zarkon really is," said Hunk. Lance, in the back of his mind, wondered why this had been what tipped him off and not the fact that, oh, Zarkon had almost completely wiped out the Altean race in a genocide the likes of which they'd never even considered a possibility on Earth. A whole planet, purposefully destroyed and all its people, good people like Alfor, murdered? That was a level of evil Lance just couldn't comprehend. Hunk, unaware of Lance's thoughts, continued. "We're the only ones who can stop him."

"Okay," said Shiro. "So we can't go into the tunnels guns blazing. Plan B, then. We draw the Galra up to the surface."

"Idea!" said Hunk. "If we attack all the mining stuff, the troops will have to come to defend it! Then we beat them up, head into the tunnels, and yay! Voltron saves the day."

"But how do we know if all the troops left the tunnels?" asked Keith.

Allura brightened. "We can track the Galra and the Balmerans using Biothermal Life Indicator Point Technology."

Pidge's eyes lit up like it was Christmas. "BLIP tech!"

Allura stared at her.

"It's an acronym," she offered.

"Alright," said Allura unsurely, before shaking her head. "One of you will need to fly around the Balmera and drop sensors into the shafts. Then we'll be able to see where the Galra and Balmerans are. There are also sensors built into your suits.'

"Well, I can do that," said Pidge. "I just modified the Green Lion with the invisible maze's cloaking tech. I should be able to fly around unnoticed."

Lance worried for a half a moment that Allura might be upset by this, but she nodded.

"Here is their main power generator," said Coran, zooming in on the scary glowing generator. "Take this down, and you'll severely weaken their defences."

"We will stay in cloud cover and give you tactical support," said Allura. "With the defences weakened from Sendak's crystal, we won't be of much help to you."

"I'll take out the power generator," said Shiro. "Keith, Lance, Hunk, you take out the big mining rigs."

"Yeah!" exclaimed Hunk excitedly. "Let's do this! Let's go kick some purple alien ass – I mean butt! Sorry, Pidge, forgot you're here."

Pidge scowled and looked very prepared to demonstrate just how little her vocabulary needed to be expanded (and Lance didn't doubt that the little gremlin had the mouth of a sailor), but Shiro cut in. "Alright, everyone. Let's go."

 **A/N: This chapter was a lot of fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoyed it! The gun sounds scene is one of my favourites, to be honest, so writing it was a blast (get it? a blast? because l** **aser guns? yeah?). Also, there was a bit of research. I don't speak Spanish, so someone please correct me if the translation of puppy-dog eyes is wrong. By the way, with Lance's siblings' names, I know we have canon ones now, but editing chapters on here is a lot so they're just gonna stay as they are.**

 **You might be disappointed that you didn't get to see more of the Alfor and Coran reunion but, honestly, I didn't think Lance would stick around. Also, my poor shipper heart agonised over how to make this not high-key Alforan so Lance leaving worked out well for me.**

 **Hope you all enjoyed! We're sadly back to the iffy update schedule now, so sorry about that. I'll try to have the next chapter up soon, but with my internship and all, I can't be sure. Love you guys!**


	21. Return to the Balmera: Part Two

"So this is exciting," Lance said to Blue as he made himself at home in her cockpit. She purred in response. "Our first real rescue mission. The last one didn't count. We're totally gonna kick butt out there."

As he prepped for launch, he turned on his comm-links to the other paladins. "You think the Balmerans will throw a parade for us after we free them from the Galra?"

"It's not about the glory, Lance," said Keith, who, clearly, did not know what a _joke_ was. "It's about freeing prisoners from Zarkon."

"No, I know," said Lance, rolling his eyes. "But still – when they–"

Blue decided to prevent him from digging himself into a deeper hole by taking off at that moment and cutting off his words. That was probably a good thing.

And, of course, the second they broke cloud cover, they were being shot at.

 _Wonderful_.

"Alright, guys, this is it. Get your heads in the game," said Shiro. Lance heard Keith immediately start mumbling _High School Musical_ lyrics, and his opinion of the Red Paladin shot skyward. " _Keith_."

"Sorry," said Keith. He sounded completely unrepentant. Lance respected that.

"Remember," said Shiro. "The Balmera is a living creature. Pinpoint the Galra installations but be sure not to hit the surface."

"Roger that, Space Dad," said Lance.

Shiro groaned. Lance grinned.

"Yeah, Space Dad, roger that," echoed Keith. Lance sent Keith a mental high-five, then wondered if he'd be able to send him a mental high-five for real through the Lions – then a shot nearly grazed Blue and he decided he needed to pay attention.

"Sorry, beautiful," he murmured to her. Blue sent him something along the lines of, "it's okay," and he felt a bit better.

It was actually going pretty well. A few well-placed tail-lasers took out several of the rigs – Lance was always pleased to show off his shooting skills, and of course working together with Blue the two of them were just as good as he was with a gun. Hunk, it seemed, favoured a more hands-on approach, and by hands-on, Lance meant ramming the things.

"You know, this is actually kind of fun," said Hunk in a private line to Lance, bright grin on his face. "There's something just really satisfying about ramming into and destroying the hard work of the bad guys, you know?"

"You're just trying to impress Shay," teased Lance.

"I am not!" Hunk protested.

"I guess you're right," Lance conceded. "It is pretty satisfying to mess up all this Galran stuff. Bet I can destroy more than you."

"You're on!" Hunk agreed.

Blue sent Lance feelings of amusement, but Lance knew she was just as competitive as he was, especially because she was now literally keeping score on a screen next to Hunk's video feed.

They were winning, by the way.

Keith then chose to interrupt their competition. "Woah! Did you guys just see that?"

"Uh, no, sorry," admitted Hunk.

"Red has firepower!" he exclaimed, a giddiness unlike Keith slipping into his voice. "Like, an actual flamethrower!"

"That sounds so cool," Lance whined.

Blue seemed indignant, clearly insisting that water was way better than fire, and water could put out fire, so _there_. They were cooler.

Yeah, Lance could accept that argument.

Lance and Hunk flew over to join Keith – sure enough, one of the Galra installations had a huge hole melted out of it. Lance was begrudgingly impressed.

"Oh, no," muttered Shiro. "Why would they give _you_ fire?"

"Oh, shut up, Shiro," shot back Keith. "Huh – uh-oh."

Hunk was the first to react as the installation began to fall, he and Yellow catching it. "Hey, hey, be more careful! We don't want to hurt the Balmera!"

Blue mentally nudged him, very, very smug.

"I think Blue knows what to do!" Lance said for the other's sake. He followed her instructions to hit the button she'd lit up, and then she was shooting ice at the falling installation. Yellow moved out of the way as the installation was frozen in place. Blue sent him something that felt a lot like, "I told you so."

"Nice job, Lance," said Shiro. Lance beamed at the praise. "Alright, team. Let's go in and hope our good luck holds."

Lance and Keith split off from the group to land in the tunnel they were told to land in. Lance wasn't sure how he felt about being paired with Keith. On one hand, they were _rivals_. On the other hand, Keith liked _High School Musical_ , so he couldn't be that bad.

He climbed into the Blue Lion's speeder and dropped into the tunnel himself. As soon as he was clear, Blue put up her particle barrier – besides her, red was doing the same. Keith didn't wait for Lance, instead speeding down the tunnel and leaving Lance to follow. They had a map to follow, courtesy Pidge and Coran. From what Lance knew, they were supposed to close up the hangar and prevent the Galra from having any air support.

The Balmera was really pretty on the inside, crystals dotting the walls like something out of a fantasy novel. Lance would have loved to visit – you know, sometime when they weren't on a pretty high-stakes rescue mission like they were now. They pulled up behind an outcropping of rock and slid down to observe the hangar.

It was completely full. If Lance hadn't thought it was kind of weird that there hadn't been any enemies in the air earlier, he definitely did now. Why would every single ship be grounded when they were _clearly_ under attack?

"The entire hangar is guarded by a few sentries?" muttered Keith in disbelief. Lance was ready to start hashing out a plan when Keith drew his bayard and started to charge out. "Let's go."

"Woah, woah, woah, Keith, my buddy, my man," said Lance, pulling the Red Paladin back. "The Balmera is a sensitive living being, remember?"

Keith blinked at him. "Oh. Right."

"Yeah," said Lance, raising an eyebrow. "We can't start blowing things up like a _psycho_."

Keith scowled. "Got a better idea?"

Lance glanced back into and around the hangar, He caught sight of the control room and grinned. "I do indeed. We sneak into the control room and shut down the bay doors so the ships can't leave."

"That–" Keith started to protest. He stopped, blinked in surprise, and deflated. "–actually is a better plan"

Lance huffed. "No need to sound so surprised."

"I'm not surprised!" protested Keith. "I'm just… surprised."

Lance stared at him. His cheeks darkened.

"Yeah, alright," said Lance. "Let's go."

They crept along the bar-thing (did it have a name? Lance certainly didn't know it) to the control room. Lance was actually surprised at how easy it was to reach it.

"How do we get in?" asked Keith in a whisper.

Lance gestured with his bayard in a circle around the roof. Keith stared at him, and he sighed. "Cut a hole with your sword, dude."

Keith's eyes lit up in understanding and he did as Lance asked. Then, once that was done and it didn't fall in, Lance stood and jumped on it, successfully getting them in _and_ knocking out the sentry. Keith hopped in after him.

"I'm going to see if I can get these doors shut," Lance said. "Stand guard."

Keith nodded.

Unfortunately for Lance, all the controls were in Galran, which he did not understand. At least Altean looked halfway familiar, like something he'd learned a long time ago but had largely forgotten. Given how into sci-fi Lance had always been, he wouldn't be shocked if it resembled one of the languages from a show or something he used to like.

The best bet was probably the big red handprint. Problem: it could be DNA-activated. Lance was not Galra-DNA as far as he knew. He pressed a few buttons. Nothing happened. He huffed, and reluctantly tried putting a hand on the screen. An alert popped up (luckily no alarms) with what he presumed to be all-caps screaming about human invaders. Lance quickly closed it, grimacing.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he admitted. Keith walked over and glared at it, before putting his hand on the handprint. "Wait, it's no–"

There was a happy little beep and the hangar doors began closing.

Lance blinked. "Huh. It didn't do anything for me."

"Maybe it only likes Koreans?" said Keith helplessly.

That answer made so little sense that Lance snorted. "Yeah, okay, more reason to not like Galra, their tech doesn't like Cubans."

Not that Lance was sure he was genetically Cuban, but, hey, he was Cuban in heart and mind, so that counted for something.

He knew that wasn't the answer. Either there was something weird about Keith that let him unlock this thing, or there was something weird about Lance that stopped him.

Unfortunately, he'd put his money on himself being the weird one. After all, Keith at least knew his parents, right? For all _Lance_ knew, he was part-alien or something!

That was impossible, of course.

Well, it was very unlikely.

He'd _know_ if he was part-alien.

Maybe Keith was part-alien. It could have been how he found the Blue Lion and how he made the screen work. It didn't like Koreans, it liked whatever alien Keith was part. Er, whatever.

Keith nudged him. "You alright? You look like you're thinking too hard. Don't hurt yourself."

"You know your parents, right?" blurted Lance.

Keith stiffened and looked away. "I knew my dad."

"But… not your mom?" asked Lance unsurely.

"She left when I was a baby," Keith admitted. His face had fallen into a deep frown.

Lance put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, man, I get it. I lost my birth parents when I was like four. Never knew what happened to them, if they died or if they abandoned me. So I kind of know how it feels."

"Huh," said Keith in surprise. "I guess we're both misfit orphans in space, then."

Lance laughed despite himself. "We could make it a TV show."

Keith smiled softly. "Yeah. Guess we could."

Suddenly, Shiro's voice filtered over the comms: "Lance, Keith, get to the core. We're going in for a firefight and we're going to need all the help we can get."

"Copy that," said Lance. "We're on our way."

Keith slashed through the controls with his sword to ensure they couldn't undo the closing of the bay doors. On their way out, Lance shot what he assumed was the lock of sorts. Then he and Keith took off on foot towards the core.

As they were running, Pidge announced, "Guys, be careful. The Balmera is very unstable."

And of course it would be then that they ran into a bunch of sentries who promptly started shooting at them.

"Quiznak!" Lance yelped as he and Keith dove to the side.

"They're hurting the Balmera!" exclaimed Keith.

"We can't shoot back, we'll make it worse," said Lance.

Keith drew his bayard. "I have a sword, I can–"

"Keith, if you go out there right now you'll come back looking like Swiss cheese!" Lance said. He looked around quickly. There was a ladder behind Keith that led into another passage way. Lance smiled and gestured to Keith, then the ladder, then to himself and the sentries.

Keith, the oblivious boy who he'd clearly need to work with later, stared at him blankly. He looked around, caught sight of the ladder, and grinned and gestured to it before climbing up. Lance sighed and hopped out of hiding.

"Hey, betcha can't hit me!" Lance shouted, before quickly summoning his shield and ducking behind in. Keith descended from above with a grin and a drawn sword and made quick work of the sentries. Lance gave him a thumbs-up. That gesture he at least got, and the wide smile he gave Lance made it very hard to stay any amount of angry.

How could he? Keith looked like a _puppy_!

"Alright," said Keith. "Let's keep going. We don't want to leave the others waiting."

"Yeah," agreed Lance. "Let's go."

 **A/N:** **Look at Lance, who honestly isn't going to put two and two together with this but at least the suspicion is there in his head for both him and Keith! Also, my boys are bonding, yay! Poor Keith can't understand Lance's gestures to save his life.**

 **This was pretty fun to write, as usual, because Lance is pretty fun to write. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!**


	22. Return to the Balmera: Part Three

Maybe Lance was just a bit paranoid, but he thought it was very suspicious that they didn't run into any more trouble on the way to the Balmera's core. Or would it be heart? It was a living creature, after all. Were they going to see its heart? Oh, yikes, were they in its blood vessels or something? That was weird.

"I don't like this," muttered Keith as they approached the core.

"Oh, thank goodness, I'm not crazy," said Lance. "Let's just be careful."

Keith nodded, and the two of them walked forward side-by-side.

"Where are the Galra?" he heard Shiro ask through the comms. Lance and Keith entered the doors carefully, prepared for an immediate fight. Lance held his bayard tightly. "If this was an ambush, they should be here–"

The door abruptly closed behind them. Lance tightened his grip on his bayard as it formed into his blaster. He hovered his finger over the trigger. Something felt really wrong, and now they had no exit. They were cornered, and that was never good. Not that he had much experience fighting, but he knew based on video games that it was never good. Unless he had super high stats and great weapons, he was always screwed when he got cornered – and right now, Lance and the others (save Shiro), were the real-life equivalent of, like, level two.

He could see Shiro and Pidge on different parts of the higher level he and Keith had entered on, and Hunk below them, helping Shay removed some kind of muzzle. The sight of it sickened Lance – man, he really hated the Galra.

"Oh, this is a _trap_ ," realised Hunk. Then his face morphed into panic. "Oh, it's a trap!"

"Keep your guard up," said Keith. He and Lance both powered up their jetpacks and moved down to the level Hunk and Shay were on – near the big, glowing mushroom thing that must have been the core. Or the heart? Lance didn't know and wasn't sure whether or not he cared the correct terminology, especially right now. There were bigger things to worry about.

"The Galra," said Shay. "Somehow they knew you were coming back."

"How?" asked Pidge. Lance wondered the same thing. It wasn't like they broadcasted their plans to the universe. They couldn't exactly call ahead to the Balmera and say, hey, we're coming to save you, hang tight.

Shay shook her head. "I know not, but they set this as a trap for you, using me as the bait."

"Why did they choose _you_ as the bait?" asked Hunk anxiously. "How could they have known? Rolo?"

It made sense that Rolo and Nyma had known they were planning to return, but had they mentioned Shay's name to Rolo? Lance suddenly couldn't remember, and he had kinda hoped the hot guy had turned to their side after the whole mess. But who else could have given them away, if not Rolo and Nyma?

"It doesn't matter," said Shiro. "We have to figure out how to get out of here."

"The Castle-ship?" Lance suggested unsurely. He addressed Allura on the comms. "Allura? Can you please come and get us?"

"We're underground," said Keith. "How is she going to _come get us_?"

"Teleporters or something?" said Lance. Unfortunately, Keith had a point. They couldn't exactly blast their way through the Balmera to get to them. They were completely and utterly on their own.

"We're quite busy at the moment!" Allura's voice rang over the comms. There was a commotion from their side, but Lance couldn't tell what it was. "We're surrounded by fighters and we're taking heavy fire."

Great. They were trapped and Allura and Coran were getting shot at. The Galra must have wanted them out of the way so they could finish what they started – the extermination of the Altean race. That thought made him sick too. Lance heard the blare of the Castle's alarms. Oh, he really very much hated those alarms. They always – always meant something bad. They meant attacks and that someone was going to _die_ –

Wait. No one had died, they did not mean someone was going to die.

"Paladins, you need to get out of there immediately!" said Allura.

"Oh, this is it," lamented Lance. "We're all going to die!"

"Get it together, guys," said Shiro in his strong leader voice – the one that made it seem like he knew what he was doing and was a Responsible Adult™. He looked upwards as if to talk directly to the Castle. "Allura, we'll get there as soon as we can."

"Perhaps my fellow Balmerans can help us escape," said Shay.

"Uh, no offence, but how?" asked Pidge. "We're stuck – how will we reach them?"

Shay smiled, then walked up to the heart-core and placed a gentle hand on it. "This is how we communicate. The Balmera can sense our vibrations and send a message to others in the tunnels."

"Are you sure someone will be able to hear your, uh, hand?" asked Keith dubiously.

"The Balmera will deliver my message," she said.

She lowered her head and closed her eyes. The area around her hand lit up. Lance heard a faint crooning. The sound and sight rang familiar, and Lance closed his eyes and imagined someone else – he wasn't sure who – standing by a crystal, making it glow, the Balmera pleased and welcoming. He opened his eyes again to watch Shay, only to notice a faint blue glow under his feet. For a moment, Lance was entranced, and he almost knelt to examine it closer. But then he snapped out of it, stepping back hesitantly. The glow faded. Shay continued sending her telepathy-hand message.

None of the other paladins had noticed. Lance didn't dare bring it up. Maybe it was a Balmera – thing. He would ask Coran later. It didn't seem to be happening to the other paladins, but maybe that was because they were focusing on Shay and not imaginary Alteans on the Balmeran surface.

Alteans. Where had he gotten that idea?

Lance physically shook his head to throw off those thoughts. Instead, he focused on the almost musical crooning of the Balmera. It sounded like a whale, not that Lance had heard a whale in real life. If Lance had doubted before that the planet was actually a living creature, this sealed the deal.

Then – breaking the magical moment – Allura's voice sounded again. "Paladins! Do you copy? We have a battlecruiser that's locked onto us! I – I don't know if we can handle another hit, not if it fires with its ion cannon."

"We're working on it, Allura," Lance said. "Shay's sending some sort of message using her hand and the wall? Also, the ground glowed for a second, but I think that's not related. Anyway – yes, we copy."

Hunk sent Lance a worried, curious look, apparently catching a tone in Lance's voice that Lance himself had not caught. Lance shook his head subtly and gave him the equally subtle eyebrow code for, 'We'll talk about it later.'

"Shay, you're certain your message is being sent?" Shiro asked.

The answer was apparently yes, because a few seconds later, there was a crash and a hunk of crush metal popped out of the wall. From the dust, four other Balmerans walked in.

"Rax!" said Shay in delight.

"We must make haste!" said the other Balmera, probably Rax. "We know of a shortcut through the tunnels. Come."

"Allura, hang on, we're on our way," said Shiro.

They seemed to be just in time. The Galra were already trying to kidnap Blue when Lance arrived, but as soon as he entered her, she let out a gleeful roar and destroyed the fighters.

"Nice job, girl," Lance said to her.

 _My paladin_ , she purred in response.

He flew up to join the others, wincing at the sight of all the Galran ships surrounding the shielded Castle. Those shields couldn't hold forever. Allura and Coran needed help, and they needed it soon.

"Everyone make it?" asked Shiro.

"You got it," said Lance. "Who d'you think you're flying with? Amateurs – woah!"

He jerked back on the controls and narrowly avoided flying Blue into a rock. He heard her amusement in his mind, then an image comparing him to a baby lion cub. He sent back his indignation, but this only amused her more.

"Want me to answer that, cadet?" asked Shiro, a teasing undertone to his voice.

"No," said Lance mulishly.

"Let's go!" said Shiro.

The fighters weren't hard to destroy, but there were a lot of them. Each destruction lit up the Balmeran sky with explosions and bright lights. It might have been pretty if Lance and the others weren't, you know, fighting for their lives. Lance tried to make good use of his ice – it was actually fun to freeze the fighters and see how destructive that actually was, because apparently these things couldn't handle a little bit of ice.

Then there was a bright purple light, and alarms sounded from the Castle again. Lance looked up to see the big battle cruiser hitting the front shield of the Castle with a purple beam – the ion cannon. The Castle must have rerouted all of its energy to that shield at the bow – and even that wouldn't be enough for long.

" _Mierda_ ," Lance cursed to himself.

"Paladins, we need you immediately!" said Allura. "A few more ticks and we're through!"

"Alright, team!" said Shiro. "Let's form Voltron!"

"Yeah!" Lance and the others agreed.

So far, the exhilaration of forming Voltron never faded. Lance loved every second of it, even if it didn't take long. Promptly getting to yell dramatically and save the day made it even better. They pushed the ship upward, forcing the canon away from the ship and up into open space. Lance took a brief moment to observe the patch of stars the beam was aimed at, completely unfamiliar and another reminder of just how many light years from home he was.

He looked away before the thought could hurt too much.

In response, the Castle shot its own attack at the Galra ship. Voltron moved out of the way, and the beam went straight through, leaving the battlecruiser to explode and also blow up several fighters nearby. Even Voltron was pushed slightly back by the force of the blast, coming to rest near the Castle-ship.

"Yeah!" said Hunk.

"Nice shot!" cheered Pidge.

Lance deflated in relief into his seat. They'd won. They'd freed the Balmera.

"The Castle is going to need time to recover," said Allura. "Let's land on the Balmera and go from there."

"Sounds like a plan," Shiro agreed.

It was nice to be able to land on the Balmera without being shot at. The remnants of the Galran structures were still smoking – or, in a few cases, still frozen. Lance hoped the Balmerans would be able to clear it away and maybe reuse it, and wondered if Voltron could help. He hoped they could rebuild – how long had they been imprisoned? How much of their culture had they been forced to abandon under their captors? Were there those who could remember freedom, or had every Balmeran been born into Galran rule?

"Seems to me like a mission accomplished," said Keith as they landed.

"Good work, team," said Shiro.

"Just in the nick of time," agreed Allura. "The Castle defences need time to recharge."

A spark of light appeared in the atmosphere. Lance instinctively tensed in his seat as he heard the Castle alarms blaring once again. The light grew closer and more distinct – some kind of ship – until it finally crashed into the Balmeran surface. Lance cringed away, even though none of the dust could hit him. That had to hurt the poor Balmera.

"What… is that…?" he asked. It looked big, it looked Galran, and it looked like it meant that their fight was far from over. Lance's grips tightened on Blue's controls. She let out a rumbling, warning growl aimed at the alien ship.

"Trouble," said Shiro.

 **A/N: I LIVE!**

 **Guys, I am so, so sorry that it's been, what, half a year? University hit me like a truck this semester, so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to write. I can't promise when the next chapter will come but I promise it will, eventually, come. I love this fic too much to let it go, even if the show is over.**

 **Speaking of, anyone else still crying? I'm still crying.**

 **That said! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Not my best, but a chapter nonetheless. We're getting closer and closer to Crystal Venom, so prepare yourselves.**

 **Love you guys!**


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